When the researchers looked at other iPhone apps at Gizmodo’s request, they found that many behaved similarly. While the Health and Wallet apps didn’t collect analytics data, Apple Music, Apple TV, Books, the iTunes Store, and Stocks all did. The Stocks app shared data including your list of watched stocks, the names of stocks you viewed or searched for and time stamps for when you did it, as well as a record of any news articles you saw in the app.
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“The level of detail is shocking for a company like Apple,” Tommy Mysk previously told Gizmodo.
This data can be sensitive, especially when you consider that merely searching for apps related to topics such as religion, LGBTQ issues, health and addiction can reveal details about a person’s life.
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“Through its pervasive and unlawful data tracking and collection business, Apple knows even the most intimate and potentially embarrassing aspects of the user’s app usage—regardless of whether the user accepts Apple’s illusory offer to keep such activities private,” the lawsuit said.
Apple is under increased scrutiny for its privacy practices as the company expands into digital advertising. Apple recently introduced new ads in the App Store, reportedly plans to ads to Apple TV, and seems focused on poaching small business advertisers from Meta, Facebook’s parent company. While Apple’s company literature loudly declares that “Privacy is a human right,” it remains to be seen how much the iPhone manufacturer is willing to compromise that right as it develops new data-driven business ventures.