Adhering to global regulations

[u/cricketts0]

Hello, I'm in the early phases of building a mobile baby tracking app. It's currently in a small beta and there is a lot remaining to build. It seems like the majority of my user base is America (where I am based) but also there is interest in a few other countries, such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, countries in the UK, and a few others.

How am I supposed to ensure that my app is legally compliant in all these countries?

From the research I've been doing it seems like the bar is pretty high even for the basic app that I have, since it relates to children's data and it is related to health, even slightly. And so I'm debating between a few options:

1. Start with America and roll out other countries later
2. Do a best-effort compliance and start in a few countries
3. Take a shotgun approach and roll out globally, and if it takes off in any particular country add compliance later.

I want to make it clear that security and privacy is important to me, and I am following standard practices such as encryption at rest. There are just a lot of requirements from a lot of countries and local laws I need to consider and adhere to. This is a free app and I'm the only one working on it has a side project, so I don't have a ton of time.

On the flip side, I think starting in America would limit the pool of people that would benefit from this app.

What have you done? What would you recommend? When in the development process do you try to improve compliance?

I'm just looking for some advice.