Apple should be fined $6.4 million over iOS 14 privacy, says French advisor

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in General Discussion
An advisor to the French privacy authority says Apple should be fined six million euros, arguing that iOS 14 didn't meet EU privacy requirements.

Apple headquarters
Apple headquarters


The rapporteur, Francois Pellegrini, made the recommendation to the Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertes (CNIL), after it investigated a complaint filed in 2021 by lobby group France Digitale.

France Digitale argued that when iOS 14 asked users whether or not they wanted third-party apps to track them, default settings let Apple carry out its ad campaigns without asking iPhone users for prior consent.

Pellegrini said the failure of Apple to ask users for consent properly in iOS 14.6 was a breach of privacy rules under the EU's ePrivacy directive. However, he added that changes made in iOS 15 allowed for prior authorization from the user.

Data privacy rules from the EU say that all companies must ask visitors online if they agree to have some of their data collected via trackers or other tools.

By default, App Tracking Transparency -- added in iOS 14.5 -- is turned off, which means that all new app tracking requests are automatically denied. But France Digitale alleged that the setting let Apple share the data it collects with affiliated companies without warning users.

At the hearing, Gary Davis, Apple's head of privacy, disagreed with Pellegrini's conclusions.

"The absence of any seriousness to the breach...means that the amount of the fine should be decreased," he said according to a report by Reuters on Monday. Davis also requested that the amount of any fine not be made public.

CNIL's sanction body is free to ignore the rapporteur's recommendations, but they do significantly influence the authority's final decision.

Other claims against Apple

A report from November 2022 also put Apple's privacy practices into question. Apple is allegedly able to identify a user in analytics it collects, according to security researchers, using a unique identifier that can be associated with a user's iCloud account.

The identifier is included in all analytics data the App Store sends to Apple, and other apps receive the same data. The researchers conclude that "your detailed behavior when browsing apps on the App Store is sent to Apple and contains the ID needed to link the data to you."

Apple has previously and publicly asserted that it isn't in the business of selling user data, and also explains how it uses data in its ad platforms in its privacy policy.

Read on AppleInsider

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    genovellegenovelle Posts: 1,480member
    If Apple is sharing data with affiliated companies, why are the companies always complaining about Apple not sharing data. This makes no sense. 
    iOS_Guy80watto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 12
    There we go again. EU free money grabbers again. Guess they need money to fund the Ukraine war. There are a lot more companies out there using user data as their business model. So why not go after them as well..
    iOS_Guy80watto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 12
    darkvaderdarkvader Posts: 1,146member
    pwrmac said:
    There we go again. EU free money grabbers again. Guess they need money to fund the Ukraine war. There are a lot more companies out there using user data as their business model. So why not go after them as well..

    Is Ruzzia paying you, or are you shilling for the orcs for free?
  • Reply 4 of 12
    The French ad companies must be complaining 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 12
    mac_dogmac_dog Posts: 1,069member
    Ok…bottom line is that apple doesn’t sell the information. No reason to state that apples privacy policies are in question. This guy is an idiot. 
    edited December 2022 watto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 12
    No. Ruzzia is not paying me. My point is that EU governments are not consistent.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 12
    EU likes to get paid for pointing fingers and contributing nothing
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 12
    Apple is mass surveillance company. They track everything you do in their apps, and have different rules for themselves vs third parties. Continue the fines. In fact, increase them. 
  • Reply 9 of 12
    EU likes to get paid for pointing fingers and contributing nothing
    Oh! Like lawyers!  ;)
    bloggerblogwatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 12
    derekmorr said:
    Apple is mass surveillance company. They track everything you do in their apps, and have different rules for themselves vs third parties. Continue the fines. In fact, increase them. 
    You just described every company that collects data. 

    Apple asks users to opt in to analytic data now despite the fact that nobody in their right mind should not want Apple to know if an app is consistently crashing. They use it to identify and fix problems that users might not go out of their way to let them know about. 

    Also it’s a whole lot more useful to have the phone automatically tell them that something crashes when these three apps are doing something verses when Gladys phones in and says her phone stops responding when her neighbour has talked to her that week. And she’s pretty sure the Mexicans are behind everything!
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 12
    derekmorr said:
    Apple is mass surveillance company. They track everything you do in their apps, and have different rules for themselves vs third parties. Continue the fines. In fact, increase them. 
    You just described every company that collects data. 

    Apple asks users to opt in to analytic data now despite the fact that nobody in their right mind should not want Apple to know if an app is consistently crashing. They use it to identify and fix problems that users might not go out of their way to let them know about. 

    Also it’s a whole lot more useful to have the phone automatically tell them that something crashes when these three apps are doing something verses when Gladys phones in and says her phone stops responding when her neighbour has talked to her that week. And she’s pretty sure the Mexicans are behind everything!
    Nope.
  • Reply 12 of 12
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,622member
    pwrmac said:
    No. Ruzzia is not paying me. My point is that EU governments are not consistent.
    They 'are not consistent' (in one sense) by design. 

    EU directives are not applied nationally into member states. It is the member states that transpose the directives into their national laws. Those laws should cater to the provisions in the directives. 

    Occasionally problems can arise and then the laws are looked a higher levels and eventually modified if necessary. 

    At the moment this case is a small local issue within a sovereign member state of the EU.

    Although they are claiming Non-compliance with an EU directive, at the moment it is the French authorities that are examining the issue, not the EU. 
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