When it comes to privacy, Apple has always presented itself as the golden boy of Big Tech.
Now, part of that shine is coming off.
An internal document from France’s data regulator seen by POLITICO revealed on Tuesday that the iPhone manufacturer’s specific advertising practices could fall under European Union privacy laws.
The analysis of the French watchdog, which is no longer in mischief, was done as part of an investigation by the country’s competition authority into Apple’s new anti-tracking tool. These changes, which will be released soon, will give people more feedback on how their data is collected and used by third-party apps, increasing the problem between Facebook and smaller app developers that the company is not playing fairly.
But while the two French regulators took a look at this feature, called Apple Tracking Transparency, the privacy watchdog offered the iPhone maker’s advertising business a more damning assessment.
“Apple’s ad processing requires consent when it comes to reading or writing data to the user’s device,” the National Commission on Informatics and Freedoms (CNIL) wrote in its internal document. “Apple’s practices suggest a lack of consent collection.”
The non-binding the assessment, which is worded with caution as it is designed to report another case, rather than providing grounds for an independent investigation, calls into question Apple’s privacy credentials.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly denounced the “data industry complex” by taking a look at advertising models that are hungry for data from Google and Facebook, seeking to position their own company as a parameter of the virtue of privacy in comparison.
Cook’s Needle highlights how hostile relationships have become between some of Silicon Valley’s largest companies as they seek to publicly position themselves on important issues such as privacy, sustainability and human rights.
“In a time of rampant misinformation and conspiracy theories played by algorithms, we can no longer keep our eyes open to a theory of technology that says every compromise is a good compromise (the longer the better) and all with the goal of collecting as much data as possible, ”Cook told the online audience in January as he defended the company’s own data protection rules.
The introduction of the anti-tracking feature, which is due to launch on Apple’s iOS 14 later this year, was just the latest salvation in the company’s bid to claim the moral foundation of privacy. Now it could be counterproductive.
Although the CNIL was only asked to report a case related to the function instead of investigating the company’s own practices, even further down the regulator’s assessment could have consequences. It could still feed on a privacy complaint filed in March by startup lobby France Digitale.
This allegation accuses Apple of violating privacy rules by “systematically collecting the consent of users defaulting to iOS 14 to participate in specific advertising in their native apps.”
He is not the only one who focuses on the advertising practices of the American company.
A non-profit organization led by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems has also filed claims in Germany and Spain accusing the company’s tracking code of violating privacy. The company denies any wrongdoing.
The Cupertino-based tech giant has more privacy investigations by the Irish Data Protection Commission than Google, including one about its behavioral advertising company. Dublin is the main EU regulator of the two companies, as they are legally established in the Irish capital.
For some viewers, Apple’s privacy-hugging embrace hides an inner ecosystem that thrives on the exploitation of personal information in the same way as Silicon Valley’s other powers. While it doesn’t offer people data to outsiders like Facebook and Google do, the iPhone maker has an increasingly extensive digital advertising and services business that still relies on collecting digital information from people.
“While Apple is now making these moves to become stricter on privacy, they continue to reap great benefits by creating an ecosystem that is generally truly invasive of privacy,” said Joris van Hoboken. from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, which studies Big Technology.
He noted Apple’s software development kits that allow game developers to make a deep profile of users, efforts from which the company itself benefits. “They have this incentive to create the conditions for intrusive business models with a lot of data intensity and privacy, and then they benefit directly from it,” van Hoboken said.
When asked for a comment on the French regulator’s findings, an Apple spokesman recalled an earlier statement that said, “Privacy is included in the ads we sell on our platform. We stand by a higher standard in allowing users opt for Apple’s limited use of first-hand data for personalized advertising, a feature that makes us unique. “
Not everyone is so sure.
Johnny Ryan, a privacy advocate who has often become entangled with Google for his data practices, said Apple’s privacy protections were better than most of its peers. But any company, including the iPhone maker, shouldn’t be allowed to use people’s data within their own digital empire in the way other people in the world are banned.
“What we’re seeing is that internal data is free,” said Ryan, a senior member of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. “Data practices within these companies are alive.”
Laura Kayali contributed to the reports.