Apple is accused of tracking user activity, even if the settings say otherwise

Apple is being sued for collecting user data. The proposed settings for disabling collection will not help.

In recent years, Apple has paid particular attention to user privacy and privacy. The iPhone maker has drawn the ire of other tech companies, including parent company Facebook Meta, over the issue. The Cupertino-based company’s efforts in this regard have cost Facebook billions of dollars in revenue.

Apple sued for collecting user data

But it turns out that Apple collects user data even if users have explicitly set up their device in a way the company doesn’t. It costs the American giant to sue today.

App developers and security researchers Tommy Mysk and Talal Hai Bakri of software company Mysk recently discovered that iOS sends “every tap you make”to Apple from the company’s own apps. According to the developers, any attempt to disable this data collection, such as selecting the “turn off device analytics sharing”option in Settings, does not prevent the data from being sent.

And the data collected is very detailed. As Gizmodo points out, a user browsing the App Store on their iPhone sends search data, what they typed and how long they spent on the app page, all of which is transmitted to Apple in real time. Do you use the Apple Stocks app? Apple gets a list of the activities the user has seen, the articles they’ve read in the app, and the names of the activities they’ve searched for. The timestamps of each stock visualization are also transmitted. Some apps from the Cupertino company even collect data about the user’s iPhone, such as model, screen resolution, and keyboard language.

Suggested settings to disable collection will be useless

Mysk ran his tests on a jailbroken iPhone running iOS 14.6. The team found iPhone activity similar to that of a non-jailbroken iOS 16 smartphone. At the same time, due to encryption, Mysk could not accurately determine what data was sent to a device with the latest version of the Apple operating system.

A class-action lawsuit was recently filed alleging that Apple’s actions violate the California Invasion of Privacy Act. The filing focuses less on the fact that the Cupertino-based company collects this data, and more on iOS settings such as “Allow apps to ask you to follow you”and “Share analytics”that give users the impression that they can disable such tracking.. .

No wonder Apple or some other tech company collects user data. However, as the Mysk team discovered, Apple collects this data regardless of user settings, even though the company suggests turning off such collection, creating a false sense of privacy. And that is the subject of this group action.

The recent changes Apple has made to App Store advertising should raise a lot of #privacy concerns. It looks like the #AppStore app on iOS 14.6 sends every touch you make in the app to Apple. ?This data is sent in one request: (data usage and personalized ads are disabled )

— Mysk ???? (@mysk_co) November 3, 2022