Despite all the talk from Apple about how private your iPhone is, the company still collects a lot of data about you, according to a new report from independent researchers. “For a company like Apple, the extent to which it knows details about you can be truly astounding,” said researcher Mysk.
The iPhone does have a privacy setting that turns off this tracking, according to the report. However, even when you turn off the tracking feature, Apple collects extremely detailed information about you through its own apps, which apparently directly contradicts Apple’s own description of how privacy protection works.
Apple CEO Cook
The iPhone Analytics setting makes a clear commitment that if it is turned off, Apple says it will “completely disable the sharing of device analytics”.
However, two application developers and security researchers at Misk Software, Tommy Misk and Talal Haji-Barkley, studied the data collected by Apple’s iPhone apps — the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, books and stocks.
They found that analytics controls and other privacy settings had no discernible impact on Apple’s data collection — “tracking was the same whether iPhone analytics was turned on or off.”
The researchers said that the Health and Wallet apps, for example, do not transmit any analytics data whether the iPhone analytics setting is on or off, while Apple Music, Apple TV, Books, iTunes Store, and Stocks all do. The researchers found that most apps that send analytics data share a consistent ID number, which would allow Apple to track your activity through its service.
For example, the Stocks app sends Apple a list of the stocks you follow, the names of the stocks you browse or search for, the point in time you search, and a record of any news articles you see in the app. This information is sent to a Web site called analytics. This transfer is separate from the iCloud communication required to sync data across devices. However, unlike other apps, Stocks sends a different ID number and the device information is far less detailed.
“It’s not a case of all apps tracking me,” says Meisk. He and his research partners have conducted similar tests in the past on Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge analytics. In both apps, the data is not sent when analytics is set off, Meisk said.
The close attention to user behavior that Apple does in this way can anger some people, whether the concern is important or not. For example, in the App Store, when you browse apps related to mental health, addiction, and sexual orientation, you may find content that you don’t want to be sent to the company’s servers.
It’s no surprise that Apple collects analytics information; it’s explicitly stated in the privacy policy, and almost every app and device you use could be using your data for analytics. But Meisk said he was shocked by the level of detail involved. “I wish companies like Apple that believe privacy is a basic human right would collect more general analytics data,” Meisk said.
