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Apple to Require Explicit Permission for iOS Apps Accessing Address Book Data
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Hahah misinformation at its best.
I just hope none of those demanding that Apple restrict access to their contacts is jailbroken and installed random apps from Cydia..
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All that's going to happen now is when any app wants access to your address book, it will ask you. An iOS dialog will pop up and you will have to grant permission. Just like location services. Once you grant that, the app can do whatever it wants with your contacts - just like today.
Privacy improved? Maybe.
CYA for Apple? Absolutely.
Privacy improved? Maybe.
CYA for Apple? Absolutely.
Pardon my previous poor spelling, it's late here.
As pertaining to your question, understand that jailbreaking removes the system protections, allowing Cydia apps to access everything, including files in other apps. Also it removes code signature checking, so rogue code can be injected into existing apps.
Now combine that with the fact that no one checks ALL Cydia repositories... and there's over 50 of them?
No, that's the definition of "malware". Spyware is software that collects information without the user's knowledge or permission, it doesn't have to be malicious. The earliest forms of spyware were browser search toolbars that read your browsing history and reported were you went on the Internet back to their makers. Nothing malicious about them, either.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)
I hope this becomes a permission dialog, and not a list of "This app can access" like Android and BlackBerry. No one reads those things.
Although, on the flip side, there's already about a hundred dialogs when launching some apps for the first time.
I hope this becomes a permission dialog, and not a list of "This app can access" like Android and BlackBerry. No one reads those things.
Although, on the flip side, there's already about a hundred dialogs when launching some apps for the first time.
An unsolicited call from a company that hasn't got any concrete details on me.
Most recently I've been getting them from PPI settlement firms. I've never taken out a loan or used credit so it's impossible they should have my details.
While relatively new to the iPhone the first thing I noticed was that my Contacts lacked the ability to be locked down with a passcode. I have looked for an app to do so but have yet to find one that will work on my Address Book--more important to me than being able to lock up my photos. I store a lot more info in my Address Book than simply addresses and the lack of security (so far) is making me nervous to the point of looking for another way to store this info. Anyone know if there is a list of the apps that are sucking our Contact info up?
GeoLocation Photo Tags Permanently Disabled
How about NOT re-enabling photo geolocation tags after each iPhone software update?
And if you really want to help us maintain our privacy for a stellar experience, how about letting us PERMANENTLY enable "private browsing" and "block pop-up windows" in safari preferences...
And how about figuring out how to incorporate hidden or proxy web browsing so less info is collected from our machines as we navigate the web?
Does it always take congress to get your attention here?
How about NOT re-enabling photo geolocation tags after each iPhone software update?
And if you really want to help us maintain our privacy for a stellar experience, how about letting us PERMANENTLY enable "private browsing" and "block pop-up windows" in safari preferences...
And how about figuring out how to incorporate hidden or proxy web browsing so less info is collected from our machines as we navigate the web?
Does it always take congress to get your attention here?
This is the point. It's one thing to "have access" to address data. It's an ENTIRELY different thing to copy that data to your company's storage facility.
I don't believe Apple has done ANYTHING about apps copying user data, not before and not now.
Apple really needs to BAN apps from copying private data, full stop!
(period! - to gitmo nation west dwellers)
And frankly, I have enough trouble keeping my data straight with iCloud. I can't imagine what happens with data taken secretly by other apps.
Developer Experience
I am a developer with a lot of apps that use the address book. Most of them do not include sending data to the server and they require no special permissions.
I do have an app where the user captures contact information and uploads it to the server.
It was initially rejected until I added a dialog box informing the user that we were sending the data to our server and directing them to our privacy policy.
So Apple does enforce this policy when it is clear what the app is doing. This is not a case of app developers rampantly abusing address books. This is a case of an app creating a server-side index under the covers. Apple didn't catch it. If they realized that the data was going to the server, they would have rejected it.
They are just talking about adding at the OS level the same thing they made me do 3 years ago.
I am a developer with a lot of apps that use the address book. Most of them do not include sending data to the server and they require no special permissions.
I do have an app where the user captures contact information and uploads it to the server.
It was initially rejected until I added a dialog box informing the user that we were sending the data to our server and directing them to our privacy policy.
So Apple does enforce this policy when it is clear what the app is doing. This is not a case of app developers rampantly abusing address books. This is a case of an app creating a server-side index under the covers. Apple didn't catch it. If they realized that the data was going to the server, they would have rejected it.
They are just talking about adding at the OS level the same thing they made me do 3 years ago.
It's not like people's phone numbers are a giant secret.
Huh? How would it have anything to do with my boss???
Some people's phone numbers are. And there are more than phone numbers in an address book.