HOT TOPIC!
Apps still tracking your data
Data is shared, even when you say no
EDITED BY ROB MEAD-GREEN
Apple has launched a slate of features it touts as enhancing user privacy, but a new report has called the efficacy of one into question.
W
hen Apple launched iOS 14.5 in spring 2021, it included a muchhyped feature called App Tracking Transparency (ATT). The idea behind this was that any time an app wanted to share your data across other apps or websites, you would have the option to deny this request. It was followed by reports of panic in the advertising industry as data brokers feared their privacy-busting businesses would be heavily impacted by the new policy.
As it turns out, they did not have too much to fear, as Apple has not been particularly strict, according to a report from the Financial Times. The article alleges Apple has made a quiet pact with companies that make a range of popular apps, including Facebook and Snapchat, that allows the apps to continue to share user data with advertisers, provided that data is ‘anonymised and aggregated’. The FT posits that instead of using uniquely identifiable data, the apps in question can harvest and share user data ‘signals’ that represent group ‘cohorts’ instead of individual users.