A lesson in privacy

Sit down, folks, class (action) is in session. The subject of today’s lesson? Apple, which is facing a proposed class action lawsuit alleging it records users' mobile activity without their consent and despite privacy assurances, in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act.

That’s per a Thursday court filing, where plaintiff and iPhone user Elliot Libman alleges the tech giant’s privacy guarantees – and its billboards advertising user privacy – are nothing more than an illusion.

📝 Is there a smoking gun?... Yes, according to the court filing – a recent Gizmodo report. Which documents the work of two security researchers from software company Mysk, who studied Apple’s data collection practices.

After analyzing almost every first-party iPhone app (Stocks, the App Store, Apple Music, etc.), they concluded analytics control and other privacy settings didn’t appear to change the data Apple collected at all. This directly contradicts the tech giant’s claim that when the setting is turned off, it “disable[s] the sharing of Device Analytics altogether.”

Though just like siblings, not every app is acting the same.

• For example, the Health and Wallet apps don’t transmit any analytics data, period. But the App Store reportedly harvests info about every single action – down to the last tap.
• Most of the apps sending analytics data also share consistent user ID numbers, which allows Apple to track activity across its various services, the researchers found.

🤔 Funnily enough: Apple recently set its sights on becoming Ad-ple, aiming to increase its annual advertising revenue from $4 billion to $10 billion. And the tech giant’s app transparency tracking feature, which blocks third-parties from collecting iPhone user data when turned on, works just fine.

💰⚖️ Zoom out: Apple isn’t the only tech giant under class-action fire. News broke yesterday that Google will pay ~$400 million to settle allegations it illegally tracked users’ locations.