Apple is expanding the range of training courses in its stores with regard to data protection: From Saturday, customers can register for a new, approximately half-hour lecture on “Protect your data on the iPhone”, as the company announced on Tuesday. The new series of events will start on European Data Protection Day on January 28th and will also be offered in the longer term if there is sufficient demand. Participation is free.
Privacy features in iOS 16
The new “Today at Apple”events should convey, among other things, how to restrict location sharing for apps and how to use the new security check in iOS 16 and activate data protection functions in Apple Mail. According to Apple, the topic of “passkeys” is also on the agenda, as is the “App Tracking Transparency” framework, which enforces a tracking request in apps from other providers. The option to protect iCloud data with end-to-end encryption, which has just been activated in many countries with iOS 16.3, is currently not on the agenda – at least for the time being.
With the training offer, Apple is strengthening its commitment to data protection, the company emphasized. At the same time, a marketing campaign is to start showing various data protection functions in iOS. The manufacturer has been promoting its far-reaching privacy functions for a long time. According to estimates, functions introduced unilaterally in iOS, such as “App Tracking Transparency”, have led to losses of billions for advertising groups such as Facebook, and there are also complaints from advertising companies that new customers are harder to reach.
Advertisers see Apple “hypocrisy”
The head of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), an international trade association for the online advertising industry, recently accused Apple of “cynicism and hypocrisy” as Ad Age reports. It is not fair that Apple classifies the in-house advertising targeting as “personalization”, which other providers call tracking. Apple stipulates that tracking permission must be obtained for advertising tracking across providers – but not if only the data of “own” users is used for this.
(lbe)
