Apple is about to make it even harder for developers to employ "fingerprinting" to track user data, starting with the release of iOS 17, tvOS 17, watchOS 10, and macOS Sonoma.
Fingerprinting apps essentially use API calls to retrieve characteristics from your smartphone or computer. Using this information, the app can create a unique "fingerprint" that can be used to identify you across other apps or websites.
Already, when Apple launched iOS 14.5 in 2021, the company had began requiring apps to request users' permission before tracking them. Now, Apple is taking things a step further by making developers actually explain the need for using Required Reason APIs once the new operating systems roll out.
Those who fail to provide an explanation will be rejected starting in spring of 2024.
"Some APIs that your app uses to deliver its core functionality have the potential of being misused to access device signals to try to identify the device or user, also known as fingerprinting," reads a new article on Apple's developer website. Regardless of whether a user gives your app permission to track, fingerprinting is not allowed."
"To prevent the misuse of certain APIs that can be used to collect data about users’ devices through fingerprinting, you’ll need to declare the reasons for using these APIs in your app’s privacy manifest," the company added.
As 9to5Mac points out, the new rules could result in even more app rejections. Though the policy was intended to protect user privacy, some developers note that the fairly common and widely used "UserDefaults" is considered to be a Required Reason API, which stores user preferences for an app.
Forgetting to add an explanation for using what has been, until now, a pretty basic API could result in an app getting rejected. But in either case, it seems like this will be the lay of the land going forward, so developers had better get up to speed.
from Men's Journal https://ift.tt/z3ARCjW
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