Since the introduction of App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14.5 last year, every iPhone and iPad app now has to ask the user if they want to be tracked. However, some developers have found new ways to keep tracking iOS users even if they choose not to be tracked by third-party apps.
A new independent study (via Ars Technica) reveals how these developers bypass new iOS privacy features to identify and track users, even if they don’t want to. While App Tracking Transparency (or ATT) does work, it still has loopholes that allow apps to silently collect some data from the user’s device.
The researchers analyzed nine iOS apps that used server-side code to generate user identifiers, even when app tracking was disabled. The code appears to be provided by a subsidiary of Chinese company Alibaba, which is able to track this identifier across apps. Therefore, advertising companies are still able to target content to specific users.
Overall, the study compared 1,759 apps before and after AT&T was released for iOS users. While a quarter of these apps claim they don’t collect any user data, 80% still contain at least one tracking library.
Our findings suggest that tracking companies, especially large companies with access to a large number of first-party resources, are still tracking users behind the scenes. They can do this in a number of ways, including using IP addresses to link installation-specific IDs between applications, and through login capabilities provided by individual applications (such as Google or Facebook logins or email addresses).
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While research shows the data, that doesn’t mean App Tracking Transparency is useless. In fact, changes to Apple’s privacy policy have made it harder for developers to track users, and even with workarounds, they no longer have access to the same amount of data that AT&T had before.
ATT is still one of the best features iOS has ever had, and Apple is sure to make it better every year.
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