Apple: What does the new data security information in the App Store mean

A new info field has been found in Apple’s App Store for iPhones, iPods and Macs since December 14 under App app ratings. Under the term application data protection, it is listed there, for example, any data that the respective application collects about the user and which data sources are linked to other applications and websites to monitor the user.

Apple had this change in June 2020 with a number of data protection and privacy changes WWDC announced at its developer conference. It was supposed to come with iOS 14, iPadOS 14 and macOS Pixar. In practice, however, Apple only signed on to developers From December 8thSubmit data security information. One week later the information became known to the user, In the iOS 14.3 release – But only for some applications initially.

Information is only mandatory if a developer submits a new application or application update to Apple. This led some users and journalists to suspect that companies might somehow try to look around for new labels or at least postpone them as long as possible.

Does Google want to back down?

For example, “Fast companyGoogle Google last submitted updates to Apple on December 7th. Since then, Gmail, YouTube, Google Drive and many more have become quieter. Was it due to the new data protection regulations? The Internet company did not respond to a request for comment. It caused unrest in the network.

PortalTech Crunch“On the other hand, Google said after a while that updates would appear in the App Store this week or next week – and that their own apps would be provided with data protection information related to it. The fact that Google updates for iPhones have not been around for so long is caused by other things.

On the one hand, Google is reluctant to release updates during the holidays because it says it will be difficult to fix any issues with the newer versions due to the large number of holidays coming up. On the other hand, Apple itself is interfering with the process of approving updates to the App Store from December 23rd to 27th.

Two updates to Google Apps appeared after the December 14 deadline – Socrates and Google Presentations for Learning Application – but did not show any data security information.

The SPIEGEL application does not yet display any data security information in the App Store. This is of course due to the fact that no update is currently planned. However, in the next application version, the required information will be submitted in the same way as the application store rules provide.

A voluntary self-expression

The information displayed in the App Store is based solely on information provided by the developers and is published on the Apple Developer Website. Guided by the questionnaire. In the best case scenario, it ends after the first question, which is: “Are you or your third-party partners collecting data from this application?” If you click “No”, you are already done, but this will affect relatively few application providers.

Everyone else should go through the long list of possible data types below and indicate whether each of them or their partners use the data in question. How long it takes to get such a list is shown in Facebook Messenger. Even on the big screen of the iPhone 12 Pro Max, the list is six pages long.

Messenger, on the other hand, has only one entry in the alternative signal: the user’s phone number is required for the application to work, but is not linked to his identity, it simply says.

There is no special treatment for Apple applications

This practice also applies to Apple’s own applications. Information related to programs listed in the App Store, such as shared applications, is stored there. For Apple apps not available in the App Store App Store, The Camera application And this Message application, Data security information is available on the web. A complete list can be found here On this support page.

The site also explains what Apple means by “data associated with you” and “data used for tracking”. After all, there is a FAQ section that answers data security questions about Apple applications. For example, the use of graphs also collects health and fitness data.

Quick overview

You will find a somewhat quick overview of what the various data on data security represent On this overview page. “Exact location” is defined as “information that describes your location with the same or greater clarity than latitude and longitude with three or more decimal places.”

With this information you are already well equipped to understand Apple’s new data protection tiles. One glance is often enough to see if an application collects a lot or looks at a little user data.

You should not make the mistake of assuming that the information provided there applies to Android applications of the same name. An application that works better and has data on the iPhone may eagerly collect data on the Android mobile phone.