Privacy First : Safe Technology To Protect Your Rights

With software updates across all devices (macOS 10.13.4, iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3), Apple has launched a privacy push that sets to immediately introduce new information regarding data privacy.

- Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan

While there’s no doubt that these updates, released on Thursday, have been prompted by the new European data protection regulation GDPR, they have come at the ideal time after the Facebook/ Cambridge Analytica scandal that kicked off last week. Apple CEO Tim Cook has even made a public rebuke of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg over the social media’s business model.

HOW PRIVACY BECAME A MASS-MARKET CONCERN

Back in October last year, a blog post from developer Felix Krause demonstrated how easy it was for a developer to create a password prompt that looks identical to the one we’re all familiar with on our Apple devices. This blog post received a fair amount of attention, with many Apple users left feeling wary that their data could be phished and used maliciously.

This fear became even more real in the wake of the Facebook breach when it was found that Cambridge Analytica had acquired a staggering 50 million of the social network’s profiles in 2014. This appears to be the most consequential data breaches in history, rivalling even the breach of financial records from Equifax. Sensitive information was harvested from a researcher who used a survey to collect the data from 270,000 users and their friends. Passing this over to Cambridge Analytica is a clear violation of Facebook’s terms of service and questions are being raised as to whether the data has been destroyed. The New York Times reported that at least some of the data is still available online.