Advertising heavily about privacy, Apple still collects a lot of data about how users use devices, especially through the App Store and apps developed by it.
Apple positions itself as a privacy-first company, repeatedly confronting law enforcement to preserve the encryption of users' phones, FaceTime messages and calls. Over the past year, the big man from Cupertino also "destroyed" Facebook's ad tracking activity.
But as Apple's business model gradually changes, is user privacy a priority? It has recently been trying to increase profits by increasing its services, such as Apple Music subscriptions, iCloud, Apple TV, and its advertising business. Apple users are starting to see more ads inside some apps.
“I see Apple as a positive game changer on privacy issues,” said Pernille Tranberg, co-founder of the EU Data Ethics consultancy.
However, as the company grows its advertising business, there's a chance that more data will be collected on users, and it's important to be as wary of Apple as you are of any tech company.
What does Apple know about users?
The data Apple collects about users is outlined in its roughly 4,000-word privacy policy, which includes user-provided information along with data from a number of third parties.
Apple also has about 80 copies of privacy guidelines for each product and application, which are more specific about how data is collected and used with each product.
It all starts with a statement that the company "believes strongly in fundamental privacy rights" and strives to minimize the amount of data it collects. Experts say Apple collects less data than tech giants like Google or Facebook.
When you start using Apple products, the user's name, email address, and payment information are first collected. Apple's privacy policy also states that it may collect data about device usage, including applications and search terms.
Other information that Apple may collect, with the user's permission, includes location information, health information, and daily activity information. In some cases, products or services will not function if the requested data is not provided.
Apple said it designed systems to process data right on the device without sending it to the company's servers. For example, Game Center recommends friends based on information on the phone and is not sent to Apple.
The company also advertises techniques to limit the collection of personal information. For example, users need to allow Apple to access real-time location to use many features in Apple Maps, but this location information is associated with "identifiers that change many times per hour" and not associated with an Apple ID, making it difficult to locate an individual.
“Because a user's location can reveal an identity, we convert precise locations to less precise locations within 24 hours,” the company's privacy document for Maps tells us. know.
Exclusive position
Apple began selling ads in the App Store in 2016, and has since expanded to include the Apple News, Stocks, and Apple TV apps. 600 million people use the App Store every week, turning this into its advertising "golden land".
These ads come in two forms, ads based on what you're searching for or personalized ads based on interests and data.
Apple says contextual ads are displayed based on device information, such as keyboard language and mobile carrier, search terms, or content read across apps. comes" machine, like News and Stocks.
Conversely, when a user turns on personalized ads, they are grouped into groups of at least 5,000 people who "share common characteristics" and are shown a series of ads together. These groups are grouped based on name, address, age, gender, device, and also downloaded music, movies, books, TV shows, and apps.
For example, with personalized advertising enabled, a user can be grouped into a preference for productivity, sports, news and business apps, and a preference for action and adventure entertainment. , Science Fiction.
“For personalized advertising, everything is monitored and sent to Apple in near real-time,” said Tommy Mysk, app developer and security researcher who runs software company Mysk. said.
In November 2022, Mysk researchers demonstrated how taps on the screen are recorded when using the App Store, and this data when analyzed can identify the user.
“The App Store is a special case because users have no other choice. If you don't like Apple Music's privacy statement, you can use Spotify, but there's no substitute for the App Store." back to Apple.
To opt-out of personal data collection for App Stores and Apple-developed apps, users can go to Settings , , Privacy & Security and Apple Ads. (Apple Advertising) and turn off Personalized Ads .
As for Apple News and Stocks, users need to go to the Settings of each application to turn on the feature to constantly change the identifier, if they want to avoid being personally identified.
Experts note, users also need to consider whether to allow Apple to collect data for Analytics & Improvements . This vague term means allowing user data to be used to do anything, said Jen Caltrider, a researcher on Mozilla's *Privacy Not Attached project, which reviews consumer devices. know.
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