Developers won't be able to harvest users' contacts

Jun 12, 2018 20:53 GMT  ·  By

Apple is continually listening to its users, and it always tries to improve privacy and security on its operating systems, so it recently added new policies to ban the harvesting of users' address books in apps.

According to Bloomberg, the Cupertino, California-based company has new App Store policies that specifically limit apps from access the address book databases of iOS users. Apple's iOS operating system used on iPhone and iPad devices used a contacts harvesting method that the company is now banning to boost privacy.

The report says that there are many cases of application developers asking users for access to their iPhone's address book and contacts for certain features to work correctly, but it turns out these address book databases end up in the wrong hands or they are sold for marketing purposes without user's permission.

As Apple doesn't want to end up like Facebook, which sold the data of millions of users to political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytic without their consent, the company announced that it would limit or even ban access to apps that harvest the address book databases of users on its iOS mobile operating system.

Apple forbids sharing and selling of contacts databases with third parties

During the WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) 2018, Apple announced that it now forbids the sharing and selling of contacts/address book databases with third parties while banning application developers from making databases of address book information harvested from iOS users through their apps.

"Sharing and selling that database with third parties is also now forbidden. And an app can’t get a user’s contact list, say it’s being used for one thing, and then use it for something else — unless the developer gets consent again. Anyone caught breaking the rules may be banned," reads the report.

Apple is planning several new privacy-focused changes in its upcoming iOS 12, macOS Mojave 10.14, tvOS 12, and watchOS 5 operating system, which are slated for release this fall. The company also announced recently updated App Store Guidelines that explicitly ban cryptocurrency mining apps.