Public App and data privacy

[teambelair]

Hi Appsheet fanatics,

When creating a public app, it is required to turn on the option: “Yes, the data in this app is public”.
I am building an app for students to workout during the quarantine and need to have the user/parent signs a disclaimer/waiver when opening the app. To do so, I have a form with the user agreement, first and last name and signature. The data collected is then obviously not accessible to any users.
I read other topics saying that the data can be indexed by Google and thus accessible by others. Is that true? Otherwise I can have a link to a Google form disclaimer with the same field but I would prefer to have this form within the app.

Thanks!

[teambelair]

Thinking more about it. How can the data become public since the database/spreadsheet is located on my own Google drive?

[Steve]

teambelair:

I read other topics saying that the data can be indexed by Google and thus accessible by others. Is that true?

If the app is public (does not require login), I can imagine it is possible, though I don’t know for sure.

[Aleksi]

When it’s a public app, yes whoever can see all data unless you set the option Data > Tables > Table definition > “Filter out all existing rows?”. If you set that option as ON, nobody is able to see data from that table.

[teambelair]

Thanks a lot @Aleksi.

I have a table that is hidden from the users and used only in the back end. In other words the pubic users would access Tables that would query this “private” Table. Would it still be possible for users to access its data? How would a sneaky user access it? I’m planning to have this table visible by admin users from a different non-public app.

[Aleksi]

If that sheet is used in the app as a table, users have access to it through the app because the data is in user’s device. What ever you try to do, the data is always available. “Filter out all existing rows” is the only way how you can be sure that users won’t have access to your data with the public app.

[daniels2]

Can I ask how you displayed the text of the waiver on your form?  Did you use an image to display?  
I am trying to do a waiver and have a lot of text to display but can't figure out the best way to get it to show up.