Collecting data from users across multiple apps? No more with iOS: A new update for the iPhone is supposed to create more privacy – and means trouble for Apple.
Just looking for quick tests in a shopping app? Can have some unpleasant side effects. Once typed, not only can the query be linked to your device, the app can track you across other apps and serve you ads that match your search query. That’s why, for example, you’ll find ads for products you’ve viewed in a shopping app in a smartphone game.
Companies often justify this tracking with the users’ own interests: the linked data makes the advertising more relevant to them. If someone is interested in shoes, they will then receive advertising for shoes instead of cars. All for the user experience. It would probably be more honest to say that it’s all for the advertising revenue. Because targeted advertising is more expensive to sell. Tracking in apps and on websites creates detailed profiles of virtually everyone: what do you buy, what do you play, do you watch porn, how many days a week do you still scroll through Instagram at night? This information is collected by big tech companies, ad tech companies, and data retailers in the hopes that it will predict as accurately as possible which ads you will click on. Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff has coined the term “surveillance capitalism” for such practices.
Apple, self-proclaimed privacy advocate from Silicon Valley, now wants to let iPhone users decide for themselves what’s important to them: ads that are personally relevant to them or a bit more privacy. The 14.5 update released Monday for the iOS operating system comes with a setting called App Tracking Transparency, translated: App Tracking Transparency. It’s perhaps the most important new feature of the improved operating system, which aside from that also promises new kissing emojis and Siri support for FaceTime. And it is a feature that could bring Apple a lot of trouble.
Privacy is now standard (at least a little bit)
Previously, iPhone users could already object to tracking across multiple apps, but to do so they first had to find and disable the information in their iPhone settings. Now, by default, apps are no longer allowed to track users easily. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible: if an app wants to use a person’s data, such as selling their location to data brokers or sharing their email address with advertisers, it can ask for consent. But if the person does not agree, the app must respect that – and still be usable without restrictions.
Tracking on the iPhone runs via a device identifier called Identifier For Advertisers (IDFA). This is assigned to each device by software and helps advertisers to create a profile of a user and track her activities across different apps. So the device is recognizable, whether to a conglomerate like Google or an ad tech company that specializes in advertising on the web. In the future, you can now object to this identifier being used across multiple apps. If you refuse to use a shopping app, for example, it will still be able to store your search query for skinny jeans, but it will no longer be able to read out what you searched for in another app or show you tailored ads for a skinny jeans provider in the next app. Data that is shared to protect against fraud or to determine a person’s creditworthiness is exempt from the tracking ban.
With the new features, Apple is challenging a cornerstone of the digital economy: that we are tracked everywhere on the web without being able to defend ourselves against it. Up to now, if you want to use digital services, whether online stores or social networks, you often have to agree to data protection and terms of use that enable tracking across multiple apps. If you don’t want to do that, there’s usually only one thing you can do: don’t use the app. Apple is now creating a way to use an app without being spied on in detail. There are other ways for companies to find out what users are doing in different apps – for example, by reading out and saving the exact configuration of the device they use to access the app. Apple, however, writes in a FAQ for developers: That’s not allowed either. If an app tries to do that, the developers can be admonished, according to Apple, and in the worst case, the app can even be kicked out of the App Store. Apps that do not update remain in the App Store, but can no longer access the identifier.
Users certainly seem to want to embrace the changes: According to a survey by the marketing firm Singular, 61.5 percent of people surveyed in the U.S. would select the “reject app tracking” option on iOS. Three out of four people would also prefer a privacy-friendly but paid app to one that is freely available but less data-saving.
Of course, surveys do not always reflect actual usage behavior: Many people say that privacy is important to them, but do not act accordingly in everyday life. This privacy paradox is familiar to everyone who is upset about WhatsApp’s data collection frenzy, but then communicates via the messenger in everyday life. It could be similar with Apple’s new feature: Apps’ requests to use certain data could be confirmed thoughtlessly, just to quickly click them away.
