14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has issued a public statement to explain how its Fraudulent Website Warning system works in Safari, emphasizing that despite partnering with Chinese company Tencent on making this feature more accurate, the websites you visit aren’t exposed.
Earlier this week, it was discovered that Safari for iOS can send browsing data to Google and Tencent to power a feature called Fraudulent Website Warning.
This particular tool works by analyzing the websites you load in the browser, and then using information from the two companies, determines whether they are dangerous or not. Safari can then show a warning to make users aware of the risks of continuing to the site.
Given Tencent has often been linked to the Chinese government, privacy advocates raised concerns regarding the transfer of browsing data on iPhone and iPad to the company.
No browsing data exposed
But according to Apple, the system works in a way that is very similar to the one implemented by Google, and no URLs are exposed when Fraudulent Website Warning is enabled in Safari.
“Apple protects user privacy and safeguards your data with Safari Fraudulent Website Warning, a security feature that flags websites known to be malicious in nature,” the company said in a statement for Bloomberg.
“When the feature is enabled, Safari checks the website URL against lists of known websites and displays a warning if the URL the user is visiting is suspected of fraudulent conduct like phishing. To accomplish this task, Safari receives a list of websites known to be malicious from Google, and for devices with their region code set to mainland China, it receives a list from Tencent. The actual URL of a website you visit is never shared with a safe browsing provider and the feature can be turned off.”
Apple has also confirmed that Tencent is also used for iPhone and iPad users with region code set to China, so unless you live in the country, there’s a good chance you’ll stick with the Google engine.
You can find out how to disable Safari Fraudulent Website Warning on iPhone and iPad here.