Cupertino getting ready for GDPR with new service

May 23, 2018 10:08 GMT  ·  By

Apple has just launched a new Data and Privacy website whose purpose is to prepare the company for the GDPR rules coming into effect in Europe on May 25 and supposed to provide users with new controls over their data.

This is actually the goal of Apple’s new service as well, as it offers quick tools to help customers see what data is associated with their account, delete, or download it.

While this service is first and foremost available in Europe, Apple is expected to release it worldwide in the coming months, though an ETA is not available right now.

Available data

By logging in to the new Data and Privacy website, Apple customers can get access to pretty much everything that the company owns about them and is associated to their account, including sign-in records, bookmarks, contacts, documents, and photos stored in Cloud.

There are also app usage statistics, plus a purchase history from the App Store, as well as AppleCare support history.

While customers can download the data, the file won’t be offered right away, but Apple says it will notify everyone when the data is ready. There are also several options to prepare the download, including the maximum file size. In other words, Apple can split the data into smaller archives depending on your settings – the maximum file size that you can configure is 25GB.

Similar tools are also available from other companies, including Microsoft, the software giant that earlier today announced that its GDPR tools available in Europe would also expand to customers worldwide.

With today’s announcement, Apple does pretty much the same thing, allowing users from all regions of the world to access the data that the company stores, see it and eventually removed it easily. The company hasn’t provided any specific timing info, but this release should happen by the end of the year.