Internet Policy

The Australian Department of Home Affairs and the U.S. Department of Commerce, as represented by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), issue the following joint statement following today's meeting between Minister for Home Affairs Clare O'Neil, Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves, Department of Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo, and NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson.

Apps on mobile devices are a part of daily life for many Americans. They allow us to talk with our friends, find a ride home, play games, or monitor our health. These applications on our mobile phones and tablets can help small business owners reach new customers, and thousands of American entrepreneurs and innovators are working on apps that increase productivity, improve health care and make learning more fun.

That’s why mobile apps have become a significant part of our economy -- by one industry account, the app economy was valued at $1.7 trillion in 2020, employing more than 5.9 million Americans.

In his Executive Order on promoting competition, President Biden recognized America’s tech sector as an engine of innovation and growth, but he warned that dominant Internet platforms can “use their power to exclude market entrants, to extract monopoly profits, and to gather intimate personal information that they can exploit for their own advantage.”  

With the goal of promoting a fair, open, and competitive marketplace, the Executive Order directed the Department of Commerce to conduct a study of the mobile app ecosystem, and to use an open and transparent process to hear from the many stakeholders in the app economy, including consumers, app developers, businesses, and nonprofits.

The security and privacy landscape has continued to evolve since NTIA first asked about it in our 2015 Internet Use Survey. High-profile data breaches and debates about the role of technology in people’s lives have kept concerns about privacy and security in the forefront. The spread of emerging technologies such as smart home devices and always-on voice assistants, as well as business models predicated on the collection, use, and sale of personal information, means these concerns have taken on increased urgency.

As NTIA will be exploring in our listening sessions this week, these concerns are especially acute for those in marginalized or underserved communities. These communities can sometimes face higher risks of harm from the loss of privacy or misuse of data.

In 2019, most Internet-using households in America expressed concerns regarding digital privacy, according to data from the NTIA Internet Use Survey. While fewer households had concerns about digital privacy and security and deterred online activities in 2015 vs. 2017, rates have held steady from 2017 to 2019. In 2019, 73 percent of Internet-using households in 2019 had significant concerns about online privacy and security risks, and 35 percent said such worries led them to hold back from some online activities (see Figure 1).