Apple has brought the privacy tags feature to the app store App Store. Now, users will be able to easily see what data the applications they will download can access.
At the Apple World Developers Conference (WWDC) held in June this year, the company announced that all apps in the App Store will soon have privacy tags. Privacy tags have been introduced as a feature that will allow users to get an idea of what sensitive data they share when they start using the application they will download.
All apps in the App Store are now required to display this privacy information on app stores on iPhones, iPads, macOS, watchOS and tvOS, including Apple’s own apps. This is part of the application submission process and is valid for all developers, including Apple.
The main idea here is to make the developers’ data collection and usage practices transparent, as well as allowing users to make an informed choice before downloading an app. All app developers were given a period of time (until December 8) to update their tags on the developer portal, but the process is still ongoing.
An important step for user privacy
Now these tags are live, and the app product pages have to show whether the app will use this data to track you or whether the data will connect to you, as well as what data the app collects. The data collected by any application is divided into three categories: ‘Data used to track you’, ‘Data linked to you’ and ‘Data not linked to you’.
“Data used to track you” refers to associating user or device data collected from an application with user or device data collected from other companies’ applications, websites and used for targeted advertising applications. Monitoring also means sharing user or device data with data agents.
“Data linked to you”, user account in the application, your device, etc. only represents data linked to your identity. The fact that Apple’s new privacy updates provide more granular control over the types of data an app can access after downloading is undoubtedly a positive development for users.
