Apple is cracking down on Chinese tech companies that are working on ways to circumvent upcoming application tracking transparency rules Financial Times.
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Starting with iOS 14.5, Apple plans to start requiring app developers to get express user permission before accessing an iPhone’s ID or IDFA and, earlier this week, the news suggested that the state-backed China Advertising Association was testing a tool to circumvent Apple’s rules.
Apple on Thursday sent notices to at least two Chinese app developers using methods to track app usage without user permission. “We’ve found that your app collects user and device information to create a unique identifier for the user’s device,” says Apple’s email, which says the developer needs to update the app. to comply with the App Store rules within 14 days or risk removing it from the App Store.
In accordance with Financial Times, the application developer in question used a tool called CAID, which was developed by the aforementioned China Advertising Association. This week, the China Advertising Association said CAID does not “oppose” Apple’s privacy policy, but that may not be accurate given the warnings Apple sent today.
Said a veteran of the Chinese marketing industry Financial Times that “small and large businesses” in China are considering CAID, but Apple’s recent actions “will put an end to these tests.” Some of China’s largest technology companies, such as Baidu, ByteDance and Tencent, are testing or implementing CAID to identify users.
ByteDance, for example, has recommended that developers use their SDK to issue CAID1 and CAID2 identifiers. One is based on a user’s IP address and the other is based on the phone’s IMEI, which is a unique ID number. The CAID1 and CAID2 identifiers violate Apple’s rules because they do not require permission from the user before collecting this data. ByteDance has also recommended that developers use “fingerprints and probabilistic matching” to identify users, which is also against the App Store’s application tracking transparency guidelines.
The China Advertising Association said it is developing additional services that will collect and store users ’personal data to create a“ fingerprint ”for each person. Any application that uses the CAID system will collect user data and send it to a central server to create a CAID identifier that will be used to identify the user from multiple applications. The CAA states that users can disable CAID, but according to Apple’s definitions, it is not allowed in the first place.
Technology experts believe Chinese apps plan to modify their apps in “numerous ways” to outperform Apple’s “App Store” review team, with one comparing it to a “cat and mouse” game. Apple has said several times that apps that don’t respect user preferences when it comes to ad tracking will be rejected, which could cause difficulties for Chinese companies and the Chinese government in the future.
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