Apple is preparing to update its iOS 14.5 operating system for iPhone. Among the new features, the possibility of unlocking your smartphone by facial recognition even if you wear a mask; or that of finally choosing the type of voice (male or female) of Siri, the personal assistant of the Apple brand.
Other developments expected around more valued podcasts, or gaming with the support by the iPhone of the latest Xbox or PlayStation game controllers. But it is also on the security of our data that iOS 14.5 wants to shine its spotlight.
Our personal data, “gray gold”
Because in this area, the situation is perhaps worse than what we imagined. If it is accepted that our personal data has become the new eldorado for websites and other applications for smartphones (we speak of “gray gold”), we may not yet have an idea of what is happening. backstage.
In addition to our addresses, telephone numbers… which are exchanged without our really knowing it, it is our behavior that developers watch in order to better monetize them. Link of this commercial chain with its iPhones and other iPads, Apple wants to put some order there and give back to users the freedom that has been stolen from them … often “without knowing it of their own accord”!
Targeted advertising offers
So did you know? Data brokers buy our behavior histories at a high price (website visits, use of applications, locations, duration, etc.) to sell advertising space to advertisers. These spaces will even be offered to them at auction at a time “T”, so that we receive targeted advertising at a specific time.
Scary: It only takes a few milliseconds to trigger this process. As for this teenager who dreams of a scooter spotted on the web and who will receive, while she consults her smartphone during a walk in town, an advertisement for the said scooter sold in a store very close to her position …
Spying on our lives
The behavioral history of our teenager is known, his expectations identified, his geographical position identified… There is only the “shoe”! Without her knowing it, the young woman has long been the victim of snitches hidden in her favorite apps.
Travel, purchases, research on the net, all our actions for a day are tracked in real time by the applications we use. © Apple
She doesn’t know, for example, that while she regularly takes selfies with a funny filter app, that app has linked her shots to a wealth of data already collected about her by other apps. Crossing these famous “data”, the profiles created by brokers could thus contain up to 5,000 characteristics…
Protect iPhone users
How to guard against such a phenomenon? How can we prevent hidden applications from spying on us? According to Apple, one of the keys may be in iOS 14.5 thanks to the future “App Tracking Transparency” feature.
Apple’s idea is not to prevent a potential advertiser from sending us advertising, but to allow users of their iPhones and iPads to choose whether or not they want to be tracked by this or that. application. If it accepts that an app exchanges its data with others. This is an idea that has been gaining ground for a long time at Apple, since since 2019 and iOS 13, the photo applications on our iPhones can no longer locate us.
Spot the snitches
This time, Apple wants to pass the big gear: for each application contained in his mobile terminal, the user will know if it contains cookies and will be able or not to authorize him to share the collected data with other companies. A pretty promise whose effects will remain to be confirmed. In the meantime, more than the vigilance of everyone, it is the awareness of this tracking phenomenon that must be encouraged. In 2021, the “Big Brother” imagined for his 1984 novel by George Orwell has long been a reality.
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