Matthew Connatser reports via The Register: A study found that Apple's privacy practices are not very effective because the default apps on iPhone and Mac have limited privacy settings and confusing configuration options. The research was conducted by Amel Burdusen and Janne Lindqvist from Aalto University in Finland. They pointed out that while many studies have examined privacy issues regarding third-party apps for Apple devices, there is little literature examining issues with first-party apps such as Safari and Siri.Purpose of research [PDF] Their goal was to investigate how much data Apple's own apps collect and where it's sent to, and see if users can understand how to navigate the landscape of Apple's privacy settings.
How Apple works to protect its ecosystem — explained in our Platform Security Guide [PDF] — Received accolades from the information security world. Cupertino is using its hard-earned reputation as a selling point and a weapon against Google. Burdusen and Janne Lindqvist don't dispute Apple's technological superiority, but they argue that Apple's technical prowess is undermined by a confusing user interface. “Our research shows that even if users disable default apps, they may later discover that their settings do not match their initial settings,” the paper states. “Our results show that users are unable to properly configure the necessary privacy settings in default apps. Furthermore, some default app settings can even reduce the trust in family relationships. I understand.”
Researchers have investigated data collection by Apple apps like Safari and Siri, where that data is sent, how users can (and cannot) opt out of that data tracking, and how Apple lets users They criticize how they present privacy options. This paper discusses these issues in a discussion of Apple's voice assistant, Siri. Users can ostensibly choose not to enable Siri during the initial setup of their macOS-powered devices, but it still collects data from other apps to provide suggestions. To disable Siri completely, Apple users need to find privacy-related options from his five different submenus in the Settings app. His Apple's own documentation on how privacy settings work isn't good either. We do not mention all privacy options, explain the processing of your data, or highlight whether settings are enabled or disabled. Also, because it is written in legalese, it is unlikely that ordinary users will read it. “We find that the characteristics are not clearly documented,” the paper concludes. “Specifically, we found that the steps required to disable default app functionality were poorly documented, and how data was handled was not fully disclosed.”