A
few months ago, if you wanted to know what kind of personal information Apple
had collected about you, you had to navigate to the Apple privacy website, find
a hard-to-find tab to request the information and wait for the visitors.That
is changing today, with the introduction of a new privacy portal that provides
one click access to get the information, to completely delete, pause, or kill
an Apple.com account.
You
have to wait a few days to get the information, through the updated
http://www.apple.com/privacy section of the Apple website, while Apple confirms
the request, but it should be much easier to use the tools to get now.
Apple
updates its privacy website every autumn, after the introduction of new phones
and software upgrades for the iOS12 and MacOS mobile and computer operating
systems, which this year is called Mojave.
Privacy
has become a big buzzword for technical consumers, in the aftermath of the enormous
vulnerabilities of Facebook and Google
that have uncovered how the companies approached us with ads that followed our
entire path.
When
I asked for my data referral from Apple in May, it took eight days to arrive.
And when that happened, there was not much. Apple says that the information is
stored mainly on your device, not on the servers. One sentence marks: a list of
my downloads, purchases and repairs, but not my search history via the personal
assistant of Siri or the Safari browser.
That
is the most important point that Apple makes on the internet. "Whether you
take a photo, ask Siri a question or get directions, you can do it knowing that
Apple does not collect your personal information to sell to advertisers or
other organizations," Apple said on the website.
The
company points to privacy on various devices, from the iPhone, Apple Watch and
iPad to software such as Apple Pay and Siri.
Apple's
approach to privacy could also be a marketing message, with a clear distinction
between the company and rival Android, Google's operating system that has a
market share of 85% worldwide. Google takes a more practical approach, using
some of our data to sell to advertisers.
New
for 2018:
-
The MacOS update requires that companies that place software tracking cookies
that you follow with ads for a pair of shoes, for example, after searching for
them on Amazon.com, you first need to inquire and ask for permission before
they can be installed on your computer .
-
A new feature on the iPhone and iPads is called "Screen Time" and it
keeps track of the use of the device to let you know how many hours a day you
spend with Twitter or other apps. But Apple points out that the information is
one-way traffic. You know, Apple does not.
-
An automatic password feature has been added to iOS and MacOS to simplify the
creation of hard-to-hack passwords and save with Apple's iCloud keychain. Apple
says this is a move to prevent people from logging in with social media
applications such as Facebook or Google that you follow after signing up. The
Keychain does not follow you, Apple says.
To
protect your privacy on the site, Apple recommends using a hard-to-decrypt
access code on the iPhone and iPad (unlike rapper Kanye West, who showed the
easy-to-crack 000000 code last week at a meeting with president Donald Trump),
also enable FaceID or TouchID for biometric security and enable two-factor
authentication, where you log in twice before you can use your device.
Apple
CEO Tim Cook will be the keynote speaker at the 2018 International Conference
of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners next Wednesday in Brussels, the
first time a tech CEO will address the meeting.