Some mobile app developers are looking for ways to circumvent Apple’s new privacy rules that will require iPhone users to consent to advertising identifiers known as IDFAs tracking their online moves, according to the Financial Times.
App developers are reportedly dreading the expected rollout of an iPhone update in early 2021 that will use in-app pop-up alerts asking users to consent to having their data tracked by IDFAs. It’s expected that most users will click to block IDFAs, the newspaper said.
To get around the new requirement, some app developers are looking to employ alternative tracking tactics such as “device fingerprinting,” which could result in their apps being booted from Apple’s lucrative App Store if they’re caught.
“100 percent, everyone will try doing fingerprints, whether Apple enforces their rules or not,” one mobile games developer told the FT.
Meanwhile, online privacy advocates such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have applauded Apple’s move, but warn that it won’t stomp out tracking altogether.
“There is still going to be tracking,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Andrés Arrieta told the news outlet. “We will still see apps trying to do nefarious things. No matter what you do, you will have those bad actors.”
Several leading game and app developers told the newspaper that they are deeply concerned about IDFA blocking, as they rely heavily on advertising for revenue and distribution. But despite those concerns, some said they wouldn’t risk getting banned from the App Store, the world’s largest app marketplace, for using subversive tactics like device fingerprinting.
“Do you want to play with fire?” one developer asked, according to the FT.
A top Apple executive on Dec. 8 told Reuters that new privacy protections, which enable users to block advertisers from tracking their online movements, were slated to go into effect in early 2021.
App developers who don’t seek their users’ “explicit permission” to allow tracking by advertisers could find their apps barred from Apple’s App Store, Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering at Apple, told attendees at the European Data Protection and Privacy Conference, the news outlet reported.
“Early next year (2021), we’ll begin requiring all apps that want to do that to obtain their users’ explicit permission, and developers who fail to meet that standard can have their apps taken down from the App Store,” Federighi told the conference.
Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency feature was originally slated to go live in 2020, but had been held up to give app developers more time to make changes, the news service reported.
In December, Apple updated its App Store with new “privacy labels” to show the information that iPhone apps collect on users, CNBC reported.
The labels are displayed under a button to download an app, with some apps receiving as many as three labels due to the information app makers are required to submit to update their apps. The labels, according to CNBC, include “data used to track you,” “data linked to you,” “data not linked to you,” “no data collected” and “no information available.”
The labels, which were first announced in June, have drawn criticism from app makers who say the labels will discourage people from downloading the apps and, as such, result in lost revenue. Facebook subsidiary WhatsApp, for example, said the privacy label for its app doesn’t fully describe how data is used on the service, CNBC reported.
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