[aerogear-dev] Storing the payload of the push notification

Thu Feb 5 15:29:42 EST 2015

If we provide a rock solid privacy policy like I already mentioned,
we're good to go.

On 2015-02-05, Matthias Wessendorf wrote:
> While working on the doc for AGPUSH-1258, I found this in Apple's "iOS
> Developer Program License Agreement":
>
> ...
> Further, as a condition to using the APN, You agree not to transmit
> sensitive personal or confidential information belonging to an individual
> (e.g. a social security number, financial account or transactional
> information, or any information where the individual may have a reasonable
> expectation of secure transmission) as part of any Push Notification, and
> You agree to comply with any applicable notice or consent requirements with
> respect to any collection, transmission, maintenance, processing or use of
> an end user’s personal information.
> ...
>
> That means, if an app-developer sends something like "Your blood donation
> appointment is tomorrow" to a user of his mobile app, the app-developer is
> breaking the Apple terms _and_ the law in a lot of countries (at least in
> all EU countries) :-)

Which means that if Apples knows that you are violating the terms, they
read our message :) Joy!

>
> BTW. for Google I don't seem to find a similar paragraph, but IMO they are
> not that thoughtful on privacy terms (compared to Apple).
>
>
> Now, for our UPS guide (or documentation), I will add a few sentences to
> make it clear that our app-developers should NEVER submit sensitive
> personal or confidential information with a push.
>
> Regarding a "Privacy Policy", I will also make clear what data of the push
> we store, for analytic reasons.
>
> You'll see a PR during my Friday.
>
>
> Greetings,
> Matthias
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 2:53 PM, Matthias Wessendorf <matzew at apache.org>
> wrote:
>
> > I have created AGPUSH-1257 and AGPUSH-1258
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 3:22 PM, Matthias Wessendorf <matzew at apache.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> earlier this week there was some discussion about storing the payload of
> >> the push notifications ([1]).
> >>
> >> Right now, we store some metrics (e.g. client that send the push, number
> >> of devices, deliveryStatus etc) *and* the entire content of push
> >> notification. This includes custom key/value pairs, the name of the sound
> >> file or even the size of the badge.
> >>
> >> Is all of that, storing the entire push notification payload really
> >> needed? *No!*
> >>
> >> What do we need, and why?
> >>
> >> For counting the number of sent pushes (over time), the metrics are good
> >> enough. We do *NOT* need any of the push content for that, that's
> >> correct!
> >>
> >> But we want to do more on the 1.1.0 release. We want to introduce some
> >> analytic features, to give our app developers (our users) a better
> >> understanding of their push usage (see [2]).
> >>
> >> In order to see details on how successful a push was (or not), we need to
> >> only store the value of the alert key:
> >> https://aerogear.org/docs/unifiedpush/aerogear-push-ios/img/PushMessage.png
> >>
> >> Ok, let's change that (see [3])!
> >>
> >> For our app developers, using the UPS to reach out to their mobile app
> >> users ("user engagement"), it's important to understand which push was more
> >> successful:
> >>
> >>    - "Get 10% discount today" (sent on a Monday)
> >>    - "Our shop got new site, check it out and get 5% discount" (sent on
> >>    a Friday)
> >>
> >> With the upcoming analytics we can help them to improve usage of their
> >> app. User interaction is very important to a successful mobile application
> >> and push is a key driver here! Our app developers want an app that is
> >> actively used by their users (Nobody wants his app sitting on the last page
> >> of the device or, even worse, in a folder together with Apple-Maps).
> >> Therefore it's critical for our app developers to understand the relevance
> >> of their push messages sent and how it impacts the usage of their app.
> >> That's why we do the analytics described in [2]. And, yes - only the alert,
> >> not the entire payload is needed for that.
> >> <https://gist.github.com/matzew/b6459083f39394a892c5#privacy>Privacy
> >>
> >> On the mentioned PR there was also some discussion about privacy
> >> violations and stuff, when we store the content of the notification. An
> >> example where *sensitive* data was sent over push was given. Something
> >> like: "Dear Mr. Joe, your blood donation appointment was scheduled for 3
> >> p.m"
> >>
> >>    1. This is not how push notifications are used for mobile apps. Push
> >>    is to signal, not carry actual (sensitive) data around.
> >>    2. In a lot of countries, at least almost all European countries, you
> >>    are not even allowed, by EU law, to give "data" to 3rd party providers
> >>    (like the push-networks of Microsoft, Apple or Google).
> >>
> >> How does the actual (sensitive) data come to an app?
> >>
> >> As said above a push is used to signal/ping an app, to indicate that
> >> there is real data for the mobile app user. In the background the mobile
> >> app tries to connect to the backend of the company, running/maintaining the
> >> mobile app. After the real data was fetched, "local notifcations" are used
> >> to give the user a visible notification, like "Dear Mr. Joe, your blood
> >> donation appointment was scheduled for 3 p.m", or simply "New appointment
> >> scheduled".
> >>
> >> If the app was a chat system (and not a blood donation app from the Red
> >> Cross), it would be the same: After a signal, the app connects to "chat
> >> server" and receives the actual chat message from there. A reply would go
> >> over the same "chat server" connection. None of this would go over a 3rd
> >> party push network provider like Google, Microsoft or Apple.
> >>
> >> What would we store from these silent notifications?
> >>
> >> Nothing, since there is no alert, we would just store the metrics (e.g.
> >> client that send the push, number of devices, deliveryStatus etc). If the
> >> signaling is actually done with an alert (e.g. alert:"you got a new Chat
> >> text" or "New appointment scheduled"), we would store that.
> >>
> >> I hope this helps a bit to understand what is stored and also why we do
> >> need a little bit of information.
> >>
> >> BTW. our documentation already says that push is used for signaling, not
> >> carrying actual data around, but based on this email I will update it to
> >> have explicit information on best practices. Also, the documentation will
> >> be clear about what (the alert only) is stored by the UPS, and why. (see
> >> [4])
> >>
> >> Greetings,
> >>
> >> Matthias
> >>
> >>    - [1] https://github.com/aerogear/aerogear-unifiedpush-server/pull/478
> >>    - [2] https://issues.jboss.org/browse/AGPUSH-971
> >>    - [3] JIRA TO CREATE: to only store ALERT and not the full payload
> >>    - [4] JIRA TO CREATE: update doc regarding push message storage and
> >>    best practices
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Matthias Wessendorf
> >>
> >> blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
> >> sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
> >> twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Matthias Wessendorf
> >
> > blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
> > sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
> > twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Matthias Wessendorf
>
> blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
> sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
> twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf

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