Roger Fingas
Apple on Tuesday updated its privacy minisite, spelling out things like its policy on encryption and changes related to iOS 9, such as the way it targets stories and advertising in its News app.
"We knew coming in that building a personalized news product could be very sensitive — and the first thing we thought about was we really don't want to associate news with your personal Apple account," Apple's senior director of global privacy, Jane Horvath, told the Washington Post.
The updated privacy site explains that while News collects data on reading habits, these are linked to a special identifier found only in that app, instead of a person's Apple ID. Users can also choose to reset their News history.
Elsewhere, new wording about encryption emphasizes the importance of the technology in protecting things like financial transactions. It also reiterates Apple's claim that it can't unlock iOS 8 or 9 for other parties, a point that has generated anger from some in government. People such as FBI director James Comey have claimed that such intense levels of encryption interfere with law enforcement, and argued for the creation of backdoors, despite concerns those same holes could be used by hackers and other malicious groups.
Much of the site attempts to distinguish Apple's approach from the likes of Google and Facebook. The latter two companies make most of their money from advertising, and regularly track users across the Internet for that purpose. Because Apple relies on hardware sales, the company has been able to limit and anonymize tracking in many cases.
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20 Comments
Great timing Apple. Just when Google is going to have their Nexus/Android keynote this morning, remind everyone about data collection and privacy. :)
I'd be more impressed by Apple and others if they built public-key encryption into their email programs. It should be well enough done that a simple exchange of emails means that the keys are exchanged and used automatically from that point on. The feature should have been included years ago.
Isn't it a strange world where the biggest threat to personal security and privacy is your own government? I think we need a redefinition of that threatening word beginning with T.
"Elsewhere, new wording about encryption emphasizes the **impotance** of the technology in protecting things like financial transactions." I assume that should read "impoRtance"? Unless you meant that they're using really crappy encryption.
[quote name="Ireland" url="/t/188571/apple-updates-privacy-minisite-says-ios-9-news-personalization-delinked-from-apple-id#post_2783663"]Isn't it a strange world where the biggest threat to personal security and privacy is your own government? I think we need a redefinition of that threatening word beginning with T.[/quote] I'd disagree to be honest. I'd say the biggest threat to personal security and privacy is user stupidity. Most damage is done by folks being fooled by phishing, including it turns out many of the high profile industrial hacks carried out according to recent news stories on the subject. We all know that was how Apple's iCloud was 'hacked', it was nothing of the sort, stupid users gave out their own user IDs and passwords.