Apple's Passion For Privacy

We explore how recent privacy updates to the App Store are part of a long-term commitment that is fundamental to the company

- Charlotte Henry

Apple, you may have noticed, cares about your privacy. This fact has got plenty of attention in recent times, not least because the company has brought it up at almost every possible opportunity. In reality though, it’s always been one of its key principles. Speaking at a conference in 2010, Steve Jobs declared, “we take privacy extremely seriously,” giving the example of Apple’s concerns about location tracking, and the potential stalking risk that could pose. To counter this, Apple forced apps to put up an alert to let users know what was happening.

In the more than a decade that has passed since, Apple has continued to make significant privacy updates and interventions. Not surprisingly, many of these centre around apps and the App Store. Two major changes over the last year really caught people’s attention – privacy ‘nutrition labels’ for apps and App Tracking Transparency. The latter is more significant, and more controversial, so let’s start there…

Just what is it?

Put simply, App Tracking Transparency means that users must give their explicit permission to all apps that wish to use the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) – a unique identifier assigned to each iOS device that helps create a profile of a user. Such data can be used for displaying targeted adverts, sharing location data or email addresses with data brokers, or using third-party tools to combine one app with another to target adverts and measure their efficiency, among other things.

From iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5 and tvOS 14.5 onwards, as soon as you load an app for the first time, you are asked whether or not you want it “to track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites”.