Apple: iOS 14.5 Imminent, Developers Need To Get Serious About Privacy ... Or Else - Forbes

ios.indah.link

The iOS App Store

Apple

Apple signaled today that the next version of its mobile operating system, iOS 14.5, will be coming out soon, and that app developers need to take privacy seriously at risk of being in violation of Apple’s developer program. In addition, as it has in the past, Apple clearly stated that device fingerprinting is not OK.

Fingerprinting is collecting device metadata to track phones and people.

“Collecting device and usage data with the intent of deriving a unique representation of a user, or fingerprinting, continues to be a violation of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement,” Apple said today in a release on its developer site.

Just this past weekend Apple did not allow some developers to update their apps because they contained third-party software that Apple determined was collecting data about location, system updates, battery status, and more. “Your app uses algorithmically converted device and usage data to create a unique identifier in order to track the user,” Apple told them.

Now Apple is underlining those app update rejections with a note that appears to confirm that iOS 14.5’s release is imminent.

“Make sure your apps are ready for iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5. With the upcoming public release, all apps must use the AppTrackingTransparency framework to request the user's permission to track them or to access their device's advertising identifier,” Apple’s note says. “Unless you receive permission from the user to enable tracking, the device's advertising identifier value will be all zeros and you may not track them.”

Apple is explicitly targeting Facebook in its new privacy announcement for iOS 14's ATT (app ... [+] tracking transparency) feature.

John Koetsier

MORE FOR YOU

App Tracking Transparency is a pop-up prompt apps must surface if they wish to collect data about a device or user and share it with other companies.

One example: getting device identifiers like the IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) from your best customers or mobile app users and sending those IDs to Facebook or Google as part of a look-alike audience marketing campaign.

If you’re going to be collecting data about users, Apple wants you to let potential users know about it.

And Apple wants to know about it too.

“When submitting your app for review, any other form of tracking — for example, by name or email address — must be declared in the product page's App Store Privacy Information section and be performed only if permission is granted through AppTrackingTransparency,” Apple’s developer update says. “You'll also need to include a purpose string in the system prompt to explain why you'd like to track the user, per App Store Review Guideline 5.1.2(i). These requirements apply to all apps starting with the public release of iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5.”

The upshot?

App developers and publishers have just a few more days to get their apps ready for the new privacy provisions that Apple has been teasing in iOS 14 for more than half a year.

If they don’t, at least from a privacy perspective, they’ll be potentially in violation of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement. And apps that are in violation of their agreement with Apple are at risk of being booted off the App Store, as Apple has done in the past.

The Link Lonk


April 06, 2021 at 05:33AM
https://ift.tt/2PF6JDt

Apple: iOS 14.5 Imminent, Developers Need To Get Serious About Privacy ... Or Else - Forbes

https://ift.tt/2ZaIe2Q
iOS