Experts have cautioned that keeping your data secret from Apple is “virtually impossible.”
According to a recent study, your personal data is collected by the built-in apps on your iPhone, iPad, and MacBook—even when they don’t seem to be in use.
For the first time, the privacy settings of Apple’s default apps are examined in this study.
Specifically, Safari, Siri, Family Sharing, iMessage, FaceTime, Location Services, Find My, and Touch ID are examined to see if the company is living up to its motto, “Privacy.” Apple is that.
Head of the computer science department at Aalto University in Finland, Associate Professor Janne Lindqvist, stated: “We focused on apps that are an integral part of the platform and ecosystem.”
It is nearly hard to remove these apps from the platform as they are so ingrained in it.
‘Due to the way the user interface is designed, users don’t know what is going on.
‘For example, the user is given the option to enable or not enable Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant. But enabling only refers to whether you use Siri’s voice control.
‘Siri collects data in the background from other apps you use, regardless of your choice, unless you understand how to go into the settings and specifically change that.’
The team note that protecting your privacy on an Apple device would require expert knowledge and persistence.
They also discovered that the online instructions are not only confusing, but fail to list all the necessary steps or explain what happens to the data collected.
To test whether the average user can successfully protect their data the scientists set up interviews where participants were asked to try to change their settings.
They saw that the participants were able to take one or two steps in the right direction, but none succeeded in fully protecting their privacy, and it took them all a long time to find and adjust the settings.
Amel Bourdoucen, a doctoral researcher at Aalto, said: ‘The online instructions for restricting data access are very complex and confusing, and the steps required are scattered in different places.
‘There’s no clear direction on whether to go to the app settings, the central settings – or even both.
‘It turned out that the participants weren’t able to prevent any of the apps from sharing their data with other applications or the service provider.’
The researchers say that they can’t be certain what Apple does with the data collected, but they predict that it is mainly for training the AI behind Siri and providing personalised experiences.
The study, to be presented in mid-May at the prestigious CHI conference, details a number of suggestions on how to improve guidelines in the future.
For individual apps, they suggest opting for a third-party service such as trading in Safari for Firefox.
