Yet these days, we spend more time in apps. Apple is strict about requiring apps to get permission to access certain parts of the iPhone, including your camera, microphone, location, health information, photos and contacts. (You can check and change those permissions under privacy settings.) But Apple turns more of a blind eye to what apps do with data we provide them or they generate about us — witness the sorts of tracking I found by looking under the covers for a few days.
“For the data and services that apps create on their own, our App Store Guidelines require developers to have clearly posted privacy policies and to ask users for permission to collect data before doing so. When we learn that apps have not followed our Guidelines in these areas, we either make apps change their practice or keep those apps from being on the store,” Apple says.
Yet very few apps I found using third-party trackers disclosed the names of those companies or how they protect my data. And what good is burying this information in privacy policies, anyway? What we need is accountability.
Getting more deeply involved in app data practices is complicated for Apple. Today’s technology frequently is built on third-party services, so Apple couldn’t simply ban all connections to outside servers. And some companies are so big they don’t even need the help of outsiders to track us.
The result shouldn’t be to increase Apple’s power. “I would like to make sure they’re not stifling innovation,” says Andrés Arrieta, the director of consumer privacy engineering at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. If Apple becomes the Internet’s privacy police, it could shut down rivals.
Jackson suggests Apple could also add controls into iOS like the ones built into Privacy Pro to give everyone more visibility.
Or perhaps Apple could require apps to label when they’re using third-party trackers. If I opened the DoorDash app and saw nine tracker notices, it might make me think twice about using it.
TheIdea – The Innovation Agency 