This is the correct response. Either everyone has protection or no one has. Not that I’d trust apple anyway but by pulling the service your average person is likely to make some noise because they can feel the effect.
I’m not even an Apple user but somehow I still feel like Apple is one of the very last companies where privacy and the security of your data is more worth than a dime.
Nope, Apple sells your data just as much as Google does: https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/apple-ad-revenues-skyrocket-amid-its-privacy-changes https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/12/22/23513061/apple-iphone-app-store-ads-privacy-antitrust#luMMel
While people noticed their new policies against 3rd party apps, that masked the fact that those policies carved out an exception for first party apps, meaning they collect (anonymous) data on you through Health, Journal, Music, etc. just like every other company. “Trusting them more” is simply a result of you and everyone else getting hit with their privacy ads recently.
Edit: “just like every other company” meant Google and Microsoft, i.e. the other big equivalent tech companies, my fault for not being specific.
While I’m all for calling out companies for abusing your privacy, your own links show that they don’t collect as much data as google. They could (and should) be better though.
Nope apple is literally worse than hitler, spez, and elon musk confirmed. Tim apple fucked my wife in front of me.
You lucky sonofabitch. You got to witness the ol Apple Pie with your own two eyes.
Anonymous data is actually pretty different to the data everyone else collects, which literally has your name and picture
Apple’s data is useful for trends but it can’t be used to study who I am.
This comment needs to be further up rather than the idiotic takes that don’t understand the difference between anonymized data collection (Apple) vs identifiable data collection (Meta/Google/most other tech).
Well, then there’s also the people that don’t realize that there are all sorts of programs out there that will try to take that “anonymized” data and then tie it right back to a persons profile.
For example, you can anonymize GPS location data, but just because you strip away identifying information doesn’t mean that you’re truly anonymous. It can still be obvious where you live and where you work. And once you figure out where they live (again based on anonymous data) you can tie that information right back into their profile and continue to track them as if nothing has changed. https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/security/a15927450/identify-individual-users-with-stravas-heatmap/
That won’t work on Apples data - they group all the data into cohorts, so the anonymising isn’t reversible.
Can you explain a bit more about Apple grouping their data into cohorts? I haven’t heard much about this before. For example, how would grouping data into cohorts work with GPS data?
Not all anonymization techniques are created equal? I’m pretty sure this is fairly obvious at this point to anybody remotely familiar with how data collection works when it comes to privacy and device metrics.
So, how is this relevant to this conversation besides adding more FUD and misinformation?
You sound like you know a lot more than everyone else on this subject so I thank you for your responses as a means to educate others.
Just a word of advice, be sure to treat others with respect rather than assuming the worst of their intentions or calling them idiots because they don’t know as much as you.
My response is still relevant to the conversation as we are talking about “anonymized data”. The link in my comment above proves that just because you are told your data has been “anonymized” does not truly mean that it’s impossible to re-attribute it back to an individual.
So if you trust that Apple has great techniques for data anonymization, that’s awesome, feel free to expand on that and explain why. Just don’t go around telling others that simply having any sort of anonymization technique makes it so you don’t have to worry.
As much as Google? Likely not. Does their carefully curated pro-privacy image actually match their practices? Also likely not.
@zettajon @hardypart there is nothing stating that Apple is using your data, selling your data, or even getting your data. While it did create a situation where ad dollars are going to App Store it’s still not targeted other than by search. Your own posted link says nothing about what you claimed. There are plenty of issues to bring up about Apple without the need of fabricating one.
“Just as much as Google.” LMAO. We have an expert here.
There is a massive leap between collecting data and selling your data.
I am against both but in the digital age actually knowing who has your data is such a relief. My old email got sold to third party’s a bit to many times and to this day 80% of the incoming messages are blatant generic America targeted phishing.
I feel like wuth the amount of stuff done on device and not in the cloud with iPhones and other Apple products, saying that Apple sells just as much as Google is at the very least disingenuous…
Why? They gather data locally on your device rather than on a cloud service. Why do you feel the locality where they gather your data makes the comment disingenuous?
Health is on-device, and is E2EE. To my knowledge, that’s always been the case. They do allow optional data linking services, but those need to be setup by the end-user. Apple should have no knowledge of this data, by default. Notes can be E2EE (with ADP), and with Journal (a new iOS feature) being E2EE. Music is a paid for service, with no ads, and is one of the more privacy respecting options. Data is needed for Music to help serve the user, and suggest artists/songs… it’s literally one of the platforms benefits, over self-hosting.
None of the major players literally sell your true name and address. All mask the data, and then do stuff with it like create trends to know which ads to display to “users that search for tiktok on the app store/play store”
Apple does not sell user data. By all means, look at their Privacy Policy (it’s easy to read), and show me where this is mentioned. They do collect it, and use it for their own marketing platform, but they don’t sell/trade it. In fact they DO anonymise the data they collect. Take a look: https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Differential_Privacy_Overview.pdf This is just one document, found after a quick search. They also disclose other details on their security, and other privacy (or lack thereof) aspects.
Now show me where other ad agencies, not just one or two, that goes to the same lengths, while also giving decent documentation. I’m not saying Apple is perfect (far from it).
They do collect it, and use it for their own marketing platform
Right
but they don’t sell/trade it
Then what are they collecting it for? To line their servers? It’s being used to train services, and those services that have ads have those ads targeted using the data collected in the first sentence I quoted.
In fact they DO anonymise the data they collect
So does google. Again, to the broader thread audience replying to my original comment, what is the difference?
Did you read the article you posted? Apple serve you ads, they don’t sell your data. And they allow you to opt out of tracking. It’s all right there in your article.
I know this is off topic, but Apple isn’t innocent.
It’s almost worse to think your privacy is protected when it’s not, than to know it’s not. At least I know Google is sending my Google Assistant sound clips to be analyzed. Sucks when you learn the person you thought you could trust is fucking behind your back.
Any company that obfuscates all their security practices, refuses to give statistics on security risks and counter measures, and boils their product security down to “Trust us, bro.”, doesn’t actually give a fuck about your security. They’re just the last company who is still able to keeps everything secret so they can make shit up as they go along. Apple’s security is a joke and they’re just as bad as any other manufacturer on the market, the only difference is they have successfully kept their shit secret for all these years and spent decades convincing people they actually give a fuck about security.
I still remember a few years ago having a conversation with a coworker about her iphone and she bragged about Apple never being hacked and this was right after I had just got done reading an article about a large scale hack on their network. Of course Apple never said a damned thing about it, so I forwarded her the article. IIRC she mumbled something about how the article was probably not accurate. Apple fanatics do some crazy mental gymnastics to justify them spending thousands on a phone thats probably worth about $300 at best(their hardware is on average 1-2 generations behind other devices on the market).
Did you know that most celebrity phone hacks are thru apple accounts?
Apple processors outperform flagship android phones on benchmarks every generation. Where are you getting your information?
Sadly it’s tribalism. It’s “apple = bad” so anything mentioned about apple isn’t looked at logically but rather with an “us vs them” mentality. It’s common across the spectrum of thinking critically nowadays, but I felt I had to refute all points because it’s dumb and doesn’t help anyone.
More security is good. Hating on apple because they are convinced that it’s an overpriced conspiracy is stupid. Every tech company deserves some hate, Apple included, but making that your identity instead of thinking critical does nothing to advance the work being done.
Those proposals will never be made law and acted upon.
It’s infeasible nonsense to pander to the Daily Mail reading curtain-twitchers. They’ve had 13 years to try and do this. If they wanted to (and indeed if it was in any way possible), they’d have done it already.
It’ll be just “Vote for us and we’ll make your children safe from nonces and muzzies!” until the end of time.
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We did, but it was pretty clear that they didn’t want to. It was a “shut the swivel eyed loons up” move and backfired in spectacular fashion.
The Prime Minister quit the next day, and the only person that looked pleased was Nigel Farage as he knew he’d never have to deal with it or be held accountable in any way.
The Tories will be annihilated at the next general election. Polling like 20-30% lower than Labour.
The Tories will be annihilated at the next general election.
And that’s when anti privacy bills will come through. Labour is hyper anti privacy for a long time.
While I agree that Brexit was a stupidity, I also firmly believe that EU in its current form is equally as stupid.
I mean the idea behind the EU at least seems solid. The idea behind Brexit on the other hand was…
Eh, I never thought the GOP would actually overturn abortion rights because it’s such an effective red herring to get their base to keep voting against their best interests, but here we are.
To be fair, I don’t think the GOP ever planned on it happening either. Their strategies aren’t forward thinking whatsoever and are actively fucking over future members of the GOP.
Are the Tories so different, though?
No, not at all. They’re all cut from the same cloth, a bunch of absolute muppets.
Ribbit
Nonces and muzzies! Terrifying!
Brexit happened. How long was that simmering? Anything is possible. The country has proven that.
There are a lot of things to hate about Apple, but this I can get behind. Get people using 3rd party messaging apps too! Preferably ones with e2e encryption.
Plenty of people in the UK/Europe use third party apps already, iMessage is certainly less of a big deal than it is in the US.
For sure. I live in Asia, and the Green vs Blue bubble thing that probably only exists in the US is just so mind boggling to me.
I live in germany and I don’t know a single person that uses SMS or iMessage. Almost everyone here uses WhatsApp.
WhatsApp isn’t much better. It’s owned by Meta afterall!
i can recommend signal
God damn bullshit always “for children and terrorists”
I hate how people turn a blind eye to these things nowadays. They’re willing to give away their personal lives at the expense of the shittiest excuses out there. Privacy should be a necessity, ffs.
Why don’t they just actually give their actual reason: to spy on UK citizens.
To use children and criminals as a scapegoat for this attrocity is disgusting.
“protect the public from criminals, child sex abusers and terrorists”
Aren’t two of those just subsets of the first one?
What a curious pair of emotionally manipulative examples to choose, when it adds absolutely no extra meaning to the Home Office’s statement.
i would assume they mean ‘criminals, especially…’, but classic tHiNk oF tHe ChiLdReN argument
I wonder how many complaining here actually read even this bland and uninformative article.
At issue I believe (because it is not stated, but discussed elsewhere in better venues) is that UK wants to be able to see inside encrypted comms and files, under the guise of CSAM detection. Apple is right to oppose it.
Arguments based on hypocrisy real or perceived in other venues (china) has nothing to do with this decision its just piss-taking. Give it a rest.
Other than their asinine charging cable/accessory situations I consistently find myself agreeing with Apple pretty much any time any government body or group is mad they won’t do something.
They’re generally on the wrong side of the battle for right to repair and removable batteries too.
But yeah, privacy they almost always have the right of it.
how do you reckon?
only time they have been on the consumer’s side was with regards to privacy, refusing to comply with the FBI and now this.
everything else they are pretty anti-consumer, off the top of my head
- first to remove jack 3.5 (even though I don’t really care about this, others do.)
- sticking to shitty lightning cable so they can sell overpriced cables
- the charger thing with the EU
- worst of all entirely against right to repair
Honestly modern phones not having 3.5mm doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the loss of micro SD
I’m never getting a phone without a micro SD port
Boo hoo about the headphone jack. People are still pissed about this? Please
Bluetooth provides another vector of attack for the convenience. There is already quite a list of known vulnerabilities. Yes, many of these get patched but as the open standard evolves, so do the hackers. You could turn it off entirely, plug in a cable & forget all that if all you wanted to do was use audio/video.
Absolutely
so basically apple doesn’t want government spyware on their phones
Exactly! Apple wants to make sure the personal data they hand out is directly from them.
Remember how everyone kicked up a giant stink about apple adding “on device CSAM scanning when uploading photos to iCloud”?
They did that precisely because it would allow them to search for CSAM without giving up any privacy. As I said back when all that rage was happening, if apple don’t get to implement it this way you can be damn sure that the government is going to force them to implement CSAM scanning in a much more privacy-destroying way, and well here we are.
CSAM without giving up any privacy.
Hmmmm funny because security researchers said the opposite, I kinda believe them more?
Who said it was givening up privacy. The worst I heard is slippery slope of they donthis they might ad more to it later. And how was it privacy compromising?
Like the politicians would have cared. This is just a convenient excuse. Either they would have found another one or they would have said “we can’t trust Apple to scan for this material. The police has to do these scans!”
We were right to oppose it then and we are right to oppose it now.
We were right to oppose it then and we are right to oppose it now.
You were right to oppose doing it in the most privacy conscious way? Or were you against CSAM scanning at all?
It was a government provided list of hashes check against. For me, I don’t like it because I don’t trust 3 letter agencies to not abuse the ability to search every iDevice in the world for arbitrary file hashes.
It was a database of hashes that were taken from the intersection of multiple country CSAM databases.
Germany couldn’t just put a picture of a nazi in there and have every iPhone flag everyone that has a picture of a nazi on it unless multiple other countries also had that same picture in their CSAM db.
It also only happened when you uploaded the photo to iCloud. Know what they do now instead? Just scan for CSAM on iCloud like google, Microsoft, imgur, Reddit, etc all do.
The end result is the same in detecting CSAM, but the way apple proposed was more secure and valued your privacy more.
Anything scanning messages or media on my device is an absolute NO if I don’t control it.
The incumbent government is circling the drain and are, it seems, determined to leave a trail of destruction and burned bridges for their successors to repair.
That is how conservative parties work, yes.
In the UK, even conservatives hate the conservatives. It’s quite impressive, really.
No offence but isn’t a very similar policy about banning end-to-end encryption also in talk in the EU
Absolutely don’t agree with it, will be the beginning of the end for privacy but this is more of a European wide (and even world wide) push for a close to e2e encryption
I do seem to recall that some countries petitioned a weakening of e2ee. Some other countries through were firmly against it, so it seems it has lead to nowhere. For sure something to be aware of.
There’s legitimate criticism to be made for Apple, but this is something I really appreciate about them.
Walled garden aside, I think they do care about privacy and security.
It’s their brand. And I’m glad it is. It’s something Samsung can’t copy (I presume because of the Google backbone) or attack.
(Written on a Samsung phone btw.)
Edit. I should probably add why it’s good even when I’m not in their ecosystem. It raises the bar for competition and shows that privacy adds value.
I don’t know if they actually care, but I think they figured privacy was a great niche to jump in when they started losing more and more market share to android
It’s a brilliant move for Apple because Google can’t play that game.
Google is fundamentally an advertising company. They materially benefit from user data in providing a more valuable service to advertisers. If Google takes a strong stance on privacy, it could disadvantage the primary business.
Signal and WhatsApp have also said they’d likely leave the UK market if this bill is passed as it currently is.
Signal should still work there if people want to use it, and they don’t block it with a Great British Firewall.
It’s not so much a matter of whether the service would work or not but whether the corporate directors would be exposed to criminal liability for continuing to provide such services without OFCOM being able to “understand” the encrypted messages: see 99(4) of the Bill
Hadrian’s firewall
Don’t you know anything, Brits? Apple only strips security features for the Chinese government, you fools!
Haha yeah too right. UK government isn’t authoritarian enough for apple to listen to
Oh, they are authoritarian enough. They just aren’t powerful enough.
Want to know what it looks like to go power crazy with no power, then go look at the Tories.
it has more to do with where their factories are located. Hard to negotiate with the people who control the very land and people you utilize to build your hardware
Not saying that justifies it, just think we should be accurate with our outrage
I think it’s more that they know they don’t have any negotiating power in China. China doesn’t care if they have iMessage, but the UK and the british people do.
I mean, they didn’t cave to Russia either. Apple just has principles until there’s enough cash on the table. Then they claim to “always abide by local laws” wherever they operate.
Yeah you are right there, just being too smart mouthed I guess
Nah you were appropriately smart mouthed. The problem was my clumsy post intro.
As a UK citizen, I totally support this. The more that the average voter is disconvenienced because of proposed law changes like this and the (unenforcable) anti-porn laws, the more likely they are to actually pressure their MP or change how they vote.
Good for Apple to take a stand.
Why can’t the UK govt simply rent their spyware from Israel, like everyone else?
They should just publicly publish all the messages from politicians’ accounts.
If they want to see our messages we should be able to see theirs, fair is fair.
Apple would have to refactor their tools and potentially introduce security issues for everyone by doing this. If the UK government wants to be fucking dumb, it shouldn’t be something everyone has to pay the price for.
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Does android just have a huge market share ? Off the top of my head I think I have three people with ‘green bubbles’ in iMessage and I don’t use WhatsApp at all. Canadian for what it’s worth.
Yeh apple is massive in the UK but because WhatsApp came before the apple domination every started using WA. Now, everyone just uses WA. In the IT field WA is a godsend when 99% of users have it.
I personally hate the UI / UX but to each their own I guess.
Yeh it’s terrible. It’s not seen an overhaul since god knows when.
