Apple talks extensively about privacy, but the company’s privacy protections are now being challenged by the company’s two developers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakry. Moss. They found that the App Store app sends detailed data on how you use it to Apple.
The information sent includes which buttons were pressed and a unique ID is provided with each package sent, so it is theoretically possible that they are linked to a user profile. However, that’s not something the developers can confirm.
The discovery was made on phones running IOS 14.6 and not the new IOS 16. The developers write that they cannot determine if the same data collection occurs in the new version.
Before jumping to any conclusions, it’s important to point out that many apps collect usage statistics in ways that don’t require users’ permission via iOS app tracking protection. Anonymous data that cannot be linked to an individual is not personal data.
Apps that track behavior within the app but not between different apps and websites also don’t violate tracking rules. App tracking protection concerns, for example, Facebook not being able to link what you do on two different websites, not what you do in the Facebook app itself.
If it turns out that Apple is actually using ID numbers to create an advertising profile, it could still damage the company’s reputation, but it’s not necessarily “one rule for others, another for us”.
