Facebook and Snapchat can track users even if you refuse to track apps on your iPhone

To enhance privacy, Apple has implemented ' App Tracking Transparency (ATT) ' that allows users to choose whether to allow or deny tracking by the app. However, The Financial Times said on December 8, 2021, 'Even if the user refuses to be tracked by the app, third parties will divide the user into'groups' to track their behavior and collect information. Is possible. '

Apple reaches quiet truce over iPhone privacy changes
https://www.ft.com/content/69396795-f6e1-4624-95d8-121e4e5d7839

Apple reaches quiet truce over iPhone privacy changes | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/apple-reaches-quiet-truce-over-iphone-privacy-changes/

Report: iOS Users Who Opt-Out of App Tracking Continue to Be Tracked by Facebook and Snapchat --MacRumors
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/08/users-continue-to-be-tracked-by-facebook/

With iOS 14.5, released by Apple on April 26, 2021, ATT has been enabled that requires the app to ask for permission when tracking a user for ad serving. When a pop-up asking for permission was displayed, most users chose to deny, so the app couldn't track user behavior and was talked about as having poor ad performance . Facebook, which is mainly an advertising business, is said to have been particularly strongly influenced by ATT.

What was the actual impact of Apple's increased privacy panicking Facebook and advertisers? --GIGAZINE

However, The Financial Times pointed out that 'Apple has allowed us to loosely interpret our privacy policy, which has allowed companies such as Facebook and Snapchat to track users.' This tells developers that Apple must not collect data from devices to identify individual devices, and prohibits 'observing behavior and its signals by a group of users.' Because there isn't.

Apple hasn't officially endorsed the above method, but if you loosely interpret your privacy policy, the act of 'third parties tracking a group of users' even if individual users refuse to track ads. Will be possible. 'Facebook and Snapchat can collect user-level signals from the iPhone,' said The Financial Times, although the data collected is anonymized and aggregated and not tied to individual user profiles. I have.

In fact, Snapchat developer Snap will share data with investors for about 360 million people, including users who 'refuse to track apps,' and advertisers will 'more than' in their advertising campaigns. He explained that he could get 'complete real-time information'. Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg also said she is using aggregated and anonymized data to rebuild her advertising infrastructure.

The method of classifying anonymized users into groups, tracking the behavior of the group, identifying interests and interests, and delivering targeted advertisements is basically ' FLoC ', which has been highly criticized by Google. Is the same as.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation points out that the 'FLoC' that Google plans to introduce is the worst-GIGAZINE

Such tracking is becoming a new standard, The Financial Times points out. Apple declined to comment on The Financial Times article, and it's unclear if it welcomes the above method. Also, without user information such as the language and screen size of the device, the experience of the app itself may be degraded, so it is certain that not all data collection can be stopped. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that the problem is that users cannot confirm whether the actual privacy protection is working, such as whether the collected data is anonymized, and it is in a black box state.