Apple's Privacy Team Does Deep Dive Into iOS 18 Privacy Features

[Spooner83]

In my most southern backwoods narrow-minded colander on my head voice:

"I got my rights!"

 

[steve09090]

My point is 99% of users do not know anything and assume Apple is keeping them safe. Nobody is doing research, watching videos like this, or anything at all.

If the OK button included a warning about loss of privacy and data harvesting, you'd have a point. But I'm sure it wont. They will bury that stuff in the EULA that nobody reads.

So Apple is helping erode privacy in the name of convenience

They said and showed during the WWDC Keynote the interface and you have to acknowledge that you’re happy for the query to leave your device and go to ChatGPT

When Siri detects that ChatGPT would be helpful for answering a question or completing a task, Siri will ask permission to share with ChatGPT. Once granted, Siri will share the question, text or image with ChatGPT and provide the answer right back.​

​

But the query going to ChatGPT has your ID stripped from it, so ChatGPT cannot be linked to any person or create a profile.

During the WWDC keynote, Apple exec Craig Federighi promised that with iOS 18’s ChatGPT integration, “Your requests and information will not be logged.”​

​

People can believe it or not. Whether they are conspiracy theorists or not is up to them, but why would they blatantly lie if they didn’t even have to say it? We can leave that to people like Zuckerberg. Apple are very experienced at stripping identifying data from queries once it leaves your device. They’ve done it for many years.

 

[fwmireault]

If the OK button included a warning about loss of privacy and data harvesting, you'd have a point. But I'm sure it wont. They will bury that stuff in the EULA that nobody reads.

So Apple is helping erode privacy in the name of convenience

They said specifically in the interview that the requests are anonymized, IP adress is hidden and the data is not stored on ChatGPT servers, nor used to train their model. With the additional layer of the user explicitly giving consent to use ChatGPT, I think the safeguards are there.

 

[fwmireault]

So, Apple can get off their high horse about "privacy" when they default their search engine to this evil company.
Grow a spine, Apple.

No matter what you think of Google, their search engine is the most popular in the world (and frankly, one of the better ones). I changed my default browser to DuckDuckGo a few years ago, and I still rely on Google for some targeted requests as it is much more effective in finding what I need. Unless Apple builds its own search engine, I don't see how moving to, say, DuckDuckGo as a default would be an improvement. It's barely one considering that the people who care the most about privacy will change their default web browser anyway

 

[wanha]

How about you repeat the main points? You can't because it was 45 min of PR fluff about privacy. Like when a kid has a 2 page report and adds nonsense to make it a 10 page report. I'm not wasting my time watching a commercial. Turned a 30 second commercial into a 45 min interview.

It's endlessly fascinating to me how someone can put "facts" in their user name and then go on to have a strong take about something they admit they didn't even watch

It's as if "facts" is an aspirational label rather than a descriptive one

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

The way I look at the Privacy Labels is at least you are being told, and on the rare occasion you find an app that doesn't collect info you can give that app a little extra weight in your decision.

Consumers in the EU will start to lose those with the advent of alt-stores. I am very sure Epic will not force devs to declare the data they hoover as I am sure Epic will be hoovering with the best of them.

Totally backwards.

Apps didn't use to hoover up your data. That's something modern that Google and Facebook really spearheaded, and Apple massively encouraged with all of their fees for app distribution.

Distributing software anywhere outside of the iOS App Store is incredibly cheap, practically free. Want an alarm clock? I threw this together because I was dissatisfied with every other alarm clock out there: https://marksfam.com/clock.html

I collect zero info from you for using it. Few developers have any interest in collecting your info or money. The ones who do want that are disproportionately likely to be looking to scam or steal from you. Apple makes it infeasible to put apps on the app store that don't make money, thus, apps on the app store are vastly more likely to be malware than apps that you find not on their store. The App Store is the exact opposite of what people think it is.

 

[mikelets456]

Apple's User Privacy Engineering Manager Katie Skinner and Privacy Product Marketing Lead Sandy Parakilas recently sat down with YouTuber Andru Edwards for a wide-ranging discussion on Apple's privacy policies.

Topics covered include Apple's approach to privacy, the ways Apple contends with privacy laws in different countries, and how Apple deals with government requests, plus there's a good deal of information on the new features in iOS 18.

Some of what's discussed covers privacy information that Apple has reiterated over and over again, but there are some interesting tidbits on Apple's adoption of ChatGPT, Maps privacy, the Passwords app, and accessory pairing in iOS 18.

It's a long discussion at almost 45 minutes, but worth it for those who want a bit more insight into Apple's philosophy on privacy.

Article Link: Apple's Privacy Team Does Deep Dive Into iOS 18 Privacy Features

Privacy, in general is NOT a human right. However, privacy from government is in the Bill of rights. If a company wants to sell my info to other companies---oh well, but when government gets involved, now I have a problem.

 

[scorpio vega]

I really find it hard to understand when people are soooo concerned about something that they have 100% control of. Regardless if Apple do some things on a way that they can PR themselves out of, an OS manufacturer who are actually making money off of searching through every single email or track where you are at any or every given time are given a complete pass. The funniest of them all is when someone says "Android allow this particular security feature". Do they not see the irony?

For the longest time I didn’t know that you could change google(I’m embarrassed lol since I sold apple products and I usually am knowledgeable lmao) but yeah it’s not
That deep for me.

I switched it to bing and I’m happy.

 

[anthogag]

The Channel ‘MKBHD’ is the one that is considered to have the best 'quality' of all tech channels and is made with a team of people. Marques (I think that’s who you meant) is the owner of the channel and the person who does most of the interviews. So, yeah I should have used his name. I get this is somewhat of a tongue in cheek complaint you have because there is clearly no basis for it, but can you give a real world example of a YouTube channel that meets your expectations in the chance that you are serious? I’d like to watch that channel. Maybe Zach Friedman from 3D printing fame who has a teleprompter in his glasses? FYI, Larry King, Michael Parkinson, David Letterman always had notes and or a pad with questions on them. And they are considered to be in the top 5 interviewers if all time!

I don't watch Marques' channel. The interview he made with Tim Cook sucked. Reading a question word-for-word from the iPhone is terrible to watch. Acronyms are annoying, especially when it's not pronounceable like "MKBHD".

I don't watch YouTube influencers. I don't know Zach Friedman.

The issue is not having notes or a pad. The great interviewers use notes as a reference because they keep the conversation flowing. They don't stop everything to read-out a question word-for-word.

 

[jntdroid]

The video (as presented) strikes me as a PR stunt for the YouTuber to gain clicks.

Haven't had the time to watch it yet (plan to today). But honestly, as big as Apple is, everything they put out publicly has to be treated as a PR stunt from their perspective.

 

[knappeduivel]

My iMac wants to know the name of my first pet, my nickname at school and my mother's maiden name. Of course I give fake names.

 

[nt5672]

When I submitted my first app to the app store it got rejected as it said it did not collect any user data and the reviewer flagged this as suspicions. I had to send them my privacy policy (even though a link to it has to submitted with the app) to prove that the app do not collect and transmit any user data. It was the crazy person in the room with this stance.

Yep, me too. And the result is that the privacy policy is only superficial. If there is really any meat to the policy, they could have scanned your app and known all along whether your app collected and sent data or not. The truth is they cannot scan your app and tell, so they rely on smoke and mirrors for security.

 

[nt5672]

Smoke and mirrors. The US government and big tech can get any and all data they want from anyone they choose, at any time.

And in the video did Apple make any comments contrary to this? Nope, they did not, but if they were serious about security they would have. Understanding truth is more about what is NOT said or the weasel words used, that what is said.

 

[BigBrotherNowWatching]

 is earning 20.000.000.000 $ (twenty billion) each year to make
--> Google <-- the default search engine on all new apple devices ?

 is letting Chat GPT on your iPhone (and makes some privacy promises) ?

Interesting 🤥

I wonder if we ever get details how much  earns from Sam Altman on this "A.I." thingy.

Also, the proudly advertised Lock Down Mode is still unfinished: the most important apps are still not end to end encrypted.
And  is still pitching with "Privacy" ? 👀

So jumping to the next thing before even bother to finish the one at hand ?

The next big thing: "A.I." ?

It does not help me now, I never needed it, I won't need it in the future. It is a data driven business, I will stay as far away as I can.
And therefore I will not upgrade to iOS 18.
Nope.

Next year, 2025: I am going back to a simple phone, no apps anymore. Don't use them at all. No wasted time on this data-beacon anymore.

Unreliable Tech that threatens all of our privacy has turned into the biggest problem of our decade.

This is not hate. It is my overdue reasonable decision.
So grow up, fanboy.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

“Privacy means people know what they are signing up for, in plain English, and repeatedly. That's what it means.” Steve Jobs - 2010

i'll never understand this. installing almost any ad blocker will show you just how many known tracking servers your apps are contacting. maybe safari blocks them but let's face it, that's much less than half the battle now.

i mean heck, almost every app's "privacy label" shows that so much of your data is collected and linked to you. so how exactly is apple/iphone promoting your privacy?

 

[DominikHoffmann]

Apple should offer bounties to those who discover and publish violations of Apple’s privacy rules in their own products. The would keep the company honest.

 

[citysnaps]

Apple should offer bounties to those who discover and publish violations of Apple’s privacy rules in their own products. The would keep the company honest.

Why do you *assume* Apple is dishonest?

 

[joeblough]

@Lounge vibes 05

steve can say/was able to say anything he wanted to but that is not the definition of privacy in english. what he is describing is awareness.

privacy is your apps not contacting datadoghq, googletagmanager and google-analytics.com every 15 seconds.

i'm happy that apple makes vendors disclose their privacy policy and what information they hoover up. but that doesn't change the fact that ios doesn't give you the option to stop it without installing 3rd party tools. and installing those tools is not a guarantee that you are not being tracked. apple advertising that iOS automagically affords privacy to people is a bit disingenuous.

 

[joeblough]

Where to start...

The mere fact that app developers are obliged to report their spying is a huge step forward and gives you as a customer the opportunity to make a choice.
Before, you didn't even know that the innocent game was selling all your data to the Chinese.

It's like the ingredients on food labels. Hardly anyone reads it. But those who do read it realise how they are sometimes stuffed full of sugar, salt and potential toxins.

Secondly:
Did you know that you don't have to give an app access to the camera or Bluetooth? Did you know that you can use an app even if you block its requests?
This also didn't exist in the past and still doesn't on Android. With iOS, you can use an app without granting permissions.

EDIT
And we're not even talking about all the functions that are designed so that no data is collected at all. Like the Find my network, for example. Or the way Apple Maps navigates. Or the fact that photos are catagolised on the device. And, and, and...
A thousand things that users don't even see.

Which the competition such as Google or Microsoft capitalise on.
"The user doesn't see how we exploit him, so he thinks we don't either."
EDIT

And here we come to the point of personal responsibility.
Data protection is always a double-edged sword.
That's why Apple can't ban everything. Instead, you as a user have to think a little and consider for yourself whether the chess game really needs access to the camera and location data.

I know enough people - especially Americans - who faithfully click on "Allow" and then would love to sue Apple for a lack of data protection. That's not how it works.

Compared to Android, Windows or even the standard Linux, Apple really does a lot. But that doesn't mean that you as a user can stop taking responsibility.

uh yeah i know all that stuff. an app having access to the camera or microphone is an aspect of privacy, sure.

but the fact that all these apps are continuously contacting data harvesters is not privacy. and there's no way to really stop it, even if you install the aforementioned blockers, as blocklists can never be complete. hell AT&T and the other cellular carriers are collecting your location data and selling it to people, and that truly can't be stopped. so it's laughable that apple is advertising that somehow you have privacy when using an iphone. iphone might be more private than android, but in absolute terms, it is not.

 

[9081094]

I am not hating on the video or the people therein. I think those interviewed did a very poor job with the overly broad (quick yes answer) replies, instead of spending a few more moments to answer in a more through manner without divulging company secrets etc. The video (as presented) strikes me as a PR stunt for the YouTuber to gain clicks.

Most of the interviews I don’t understand. They never ask critical questions like “how come Apple charges that much for more RAM” or how come the recent iPhone haven’t see a change since the iPhone 12? And why they still charge that much for the iPhone SE while Samsung is offering the galaxy 55 for a third of the price with better specs, ram, cameras etc? Does Apple think it’s still competitive? If so why?

Why nobody dares to ask more thorough?

 

[CarAnalogy]

i'll never understand this. installing almost any ad blocker will show you just how many known tracking servers your apps are contacting. maybe safari blocks them but let's face it, that's much less than half the battle now.

i mean heck, almost every app's "privacy label" shows that so much of your data is collected and linked to you. so how exactly is apple/iphone promoting your privacy?

At this point they may as well allow something like Little Snitch to exist for iOS. It's slowly being pried open by the EU anyway, they could embrace it and actually make a useful model. Like they do on macOS. They already have a plugin system to replace kexts there, not much reason not to do that on the iPhone now.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Most of the interviews I don’t understand. They never ask critical questions like “how come Apple charges that much for more RAM” or how come the recent iPhone haven’t see a change since the iPhone 12? And why they still charge that much for the iPhone SE while Samsung is offering the galaxy 55 for a third of the price with better specs, ram, cameras etc? Does Apple think it’s still competitive? If so why?

Why nobody dares to ask more thorough?

You know why. They have entire teams of people dedicated to keeping the kinds of people that ask those questions far, far away from the executives.

 

[steve09090]

I don't watch Marques' channel. The interview he made with Tim Cook sucked. Reading a question word-for-word from the iPhone is terrible to watch. Acronyms are annoying, especially when it's not pronounceable like "MKBHD".

I don't watch YouTube influencers. I don't know Zach Friedman.

The issue is not having notes or a pad. The great interviewers use notes as a reference because they keep the conversation flowing. They don't stop everything to read-out a question word-for-word.

I agree. That’s what happened (used the phone/ipad as prompters) in this video as well, in addition to the Cook interview. They all have their own style, and I think every interviewer can be a bit cringe until you learn their style. I’ve never been a fan of these 'lounge' style interviews. I prefer the 'late show' style, but it is what it is. FYI. Marques started doing video from his bedroom in high school and used his initials (MKB) and added HD because he was using HD content, and he grew from there. He could have changed the name but thought he’d just stick with it.

Most of the interviews I don’t understand. They never ask critical questions like “how come Apple charges that much for more RAM” or how come the recent iPhone haven’t see a change since the iPhone 12? And why they still charge that much for the iPhone SE while Samsung is offering the galaxy 55 for a third of the price with better specs, ram, cameras etc? Does Apple think it’s still competitive? If so why?

Why nobody dares to ask more thorough?

Talking about MKBHD, his last 2 Apple execs interviews were with Federighi and Cook.
Marques challenged Federighi about the calculator app on iPad, and asked Cook directly about the Magic Mouse. But you gotta be respectful, because as we know, if Jobs didn’t like what someone did, he would ban them for life. The same thing can happen now. So when you make a living doing interviews, you don’t want to be frozen out of access to a company like Apple. That’s why some YouTubers like iJustine & MKBHD etc get invites to everything. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

I'm sure they are aware of the 'unfair' price on RAM & Storage. It’s borderline criminal. They could halve it tomorrow and it’d still be expensive.

@Lounge vibes 05

steve can say/was able to say anything he wanted to but that is not the definition of privacy in english. what he is describing is awareness.

privacy is your apps not contacting datadoghq, googletagmanager and google-analytics.com every 15 seconds.

i'm happy that apple makes vendors disclose their privacy policy and what information they hoover up. but that doesn't change the fact that ios doesn't give you the option to stop it without installing 3rd party tools. and installing those tools is not a guarantee that you are not being tracked. apple advertising that iOS automagically affords privacy to people is a bit disingenuous.

It would be very difficult if not impossible or even illegal for Apple to 'break' the information/data link on someone’s App. So I think they have done as much as they could do. I not an expert in this area, but it sounds reasonable. We know how much flack they get already for taking choice away versus Android, so giving people visibility and giving them a choice is about all we can expect, and probably what most people want. I make a deliberate choice to not use certain browsers for example. According to my iPad Safari browser, there are 67 trackers on Macrumors right now.

 

[macfacts]

Most of the interviews I don’t understand. They never ask critical questions like _“how come Apple charges that much for more RAM”_ or how come the recent iPhone haven’t see a change since the iPhone 12? And why they still charge that much for the iPhone SE while Samsung is offering the galaxy 55 for a third of the price with better specs, ram, cameras etc? Does Apple think it’s still competitive? If so why?

Why nobody dares to ask more thorough?

Privacy isn't free and the costs are upfront, not hidden. Apple doesn't harvest user data to sell but they use it to make apple business decisions like how much to charge for hardware, every iPhone is associated with an apple id, Tim can see how many repeat customers he has and when they buy.

 

[joeblough]

At this point they may as well allow something like Little Snitch to exist for iOS. It's slowly being pried open by the EU anyway, they could embrace it and actually make a useful model. Like they do on macOS. They already have a plugin system to replace kexts there, not much reason not to do that on the iPhone now.

actually, i'm not sure why Little Snitch Mini isn't already on iOS. functionally it's the same as Lockdown, etc. and clearly the most superior one out there. Lockdown isn't working right for me anymore which is a shame as the alternatives are nowhere near as comprehensive.