Apple lays gathering user contacts by tire developers
Apple wants the practice that developers use the address book of users to map contacts, for example to resell the information. To this end, it has made a change in its guidelines for App Store developers.
The change, which would have taken place last week, was noticed by Bloomberg although Apple did not explicitly point it out. According to the news agency, Apple puts an end to years-old practice that developers request access to users’ address book to use this information for marketing purposes, to use it for their own use or to resell. However, the change does not affect information collected in the past.
In the Apple rules a passage has now been included in chapter 5.1.2 stating that it is not allowed to ‘extract information from Contacts, Photos or other APIs that have access to user data, to be used to create a contact database for personal use or sale to third parties’. Nor is it allowed to collect information about other installed apps for marketing or analytics purposes.
An iOS developer tells Bloomberg that users often do not realize what developers can see as soon as someone has given permission. This would include data such as names and telephone numbers, but also e-mail addresses, birthdays and home and work addresses, insofar as these have been entered in the address book. Another developer says that so far he is only familiar with a single case in which this type of data was misused.
In the Apple rules a passage has now been included in chapter 5.1.2 stating that it is not allowed to ‘extract information from Contacts, Photos or other APIs that have access to user data, to be used to create a contact database for personal use or sale to third parties’. Nor is it allowed to collect information about other installed apps for marketing or analytics purposes.
An iOS developer tells Bloomberg that users often do not realize what developers can see as soon as someone has given permission. This would include data such as names and telephone numbers, but also e-mail addresses, birthdays and home and work addresses, insofar as these have been entered in the address book. Another developer says that so far he is only familiar with a single case in which this type of data was misused.