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Apple has been slapped with a second class-action privacy lawsuit over claims that one of its iPhone privacy settings doesn’t actually work.
The lawsuit alleges that the iPhone Analytics privacy setting, which claims to prevent Apple from collecting usage data, doesn’t do that at all. It’s said that Apple continues to collect data even after the setting has been disabled.
Apple was already the subject of a class-action suit relating to the privacy setting after one was filed in California last year. Now, a new one has another to deal with — this time filed in Pennsylvania.
Privacy matters
This latest lawsuit, reported by Gizmodo (opens in new tab), alleges that Apple’s ineffective setting equates to “systematic violations of state wiretapping, privacy, and consumer fraud laws.” The lawsuit goes on to say that “quite simply, Apple unlawfully records and uses consumers’ personal information and activity on its consumer mobile devices and applications (‘apps’), even after consumers explicitly indicate through Apple’s mobile device settings that they do not want their data and information shared.”
The iPhone Analytics setting claims to disable all sharing of device analytics, but research by Mysk shows that not to be the case.
Further, it’s claimed that while Apple says that any device analytics data isn’t personally identifiable, the data appears to be transmitted with an ID number that is tied to individual iCloud accounts — accounts that include information like a user’s name, address, and contact details.
All of this, if true, is particularly embarrassing for Apple, a company that continues to advertise its iPhones as the best option for privacy-focused users who want to control who has access to their data. Apple is also yet to comment on whether the iPhone Analytics feature is behaving as intended, or not, and we’ve reached out to the Cupertino company for comment.
Apple often touts privacy and security as one of the best iPhone features of all, but this and other class-action lawsuits don’t help its case — not does the radio silence, for that matter.
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