Apple cracks down on apps sharing information on users’ friends
APPLE has just changed its App Store rules to limit how developers obtain, use and share information about iPhone owners’ friends and other contacts.
The move cracks down on a years-long practice. Developers ask users for access to their phone contacts, then use the information for marketing and sometimes share or sell it without permission from others listed in those digital address books.
On both Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, the world’s largest smartphone operating systems, the tactic is sometimes used to increase growth and make money.
Sharing friends’ data without their consent is what got Facebook into so much trouble when one of its outside developers gave information on millions of people to political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. Apple has criticised the social network for that lapse and other missteps while announcing privacy updates to boost its reputation for safeguarding user data. The iPhone maker hasn’t drawn as much attention to the recent change to its App Store rules, though.
iPhone contact lists contain phone numbers, email addresses and profile photos of family, friends, colleagues and other acquaintances. When users install apps and then consent, developers get dozens of potential data points on users’ friends. Developers have been able to use that trove of information beyond Apple’s control.
Since the 2008 launch of the App Store, contact-list abuse surfaced occasionally. In 2012, Apple added a way for users to explicitly approve their contacts, photos, location information and other data being uploaded by developers. Some apps, including Uber and Facebook, let users remove contacts that have been uploaded.
Even so, there’s no mechanism to do that for all apps installed on an iPhone.
Aside from that, Apple’s rules on contact lists have remained relatively consistent for a decade. Balancing user privacy with the developer needs has helped the company build a profitable app ecosystem.
Apple said last week that developers have generated US$100 billion since the App Store launched. The company typically takes 30 per cent of app revenue and runs search ads in its App Store.
“They have a huge ecosystem making money through the developer channels and these apps, and until the developers get better on privacy, Apple is complicit,” said Domingo Guerra, president of Appthority, which advises governments and companies on mobile phone security. “When someone shares your info as part of their address book, you have no say in it, and you have no knowledge of it.” — Bloomberg