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iOS 13’s privacy pop-ups of Facebook data grabs

techcrunch.com

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Re: iOS 13’s privacy pop-ups of Facebook data grabs

#11

Post by Tepix »

motohagiography wrote: post #9

This article sold me in switching to iPhone. It's like everything about Facebook dating seems like a eugenic program to favour people with a naive and submissive tendency toward power and authorities. As a technology change, online dating has become a "radical monopoly (Illich)," in the sense that whether you use it or not, you are subject to it, the way a cyclist is subject to the car, and any algorithmic bias or si…

"It's like everything about Facebook dating seems like a eugenic program to favour people with a naive and submissive tendency toward power and authorities."

That makes a great quote!

Re: iOS 13’s privacy pop-ups of Facebook data grabs

#12

Post by rcruzeiro »

vincentriemer wrote: post #4

Since installing the iOS 13 beta I've noticed a bunch of apps asking for bluetooth access. I haven't kept track of every one but I do remember YouTube and Netflix asking for it on their first launch. Thankfully, I haven't witnessed any app failing to work by denying the request though.

Youtube and netflix likely do this to discover TVs that you can cast your video to

Re: iOS 13’s privacy pop-ups of Facebook data grabs

#13

Post by rcruzeiro »

decoyworker wrote: post #3

Why do applications have access to Bluetooth or WiFi ID's in the first place? Seems too low-level for an app to have access to. Aren't these details better left handled by the operating system?

iOS dev here. Applications do not have access to this kind of info. The CoreBluetooth API generates UUIDs for the Bluetooth devices in an attempt to anonymise them. Many manufacturers workaround this by including the MAC Address on the manufacturer data structure when it's imperative that an application knows exactly which bluetooth device it's talking to.

Re: iOS 13’s privacy pop-ups of Facebook data grabs

#14

Post by mrtksn »

decoyworker wrote: post #3

Why do applications have access to Bluetooth or WiFi ID's in the first place? Seems too low-level for an app to have access to. Aren't these details better left handled by the operating system?

That's what I asked when iOS 13 asked me if I would like to give permisson to the official CNN app use Bluetooth. Yep, apparently CNN was doing something with my Bluetooth but I had no idea until iOS 13.

But other than that Bluetooth access had legit use cases, like the app I use to control my Bluetooth bulb. There are plenty of devices and accessories that use Bluetooth to communicate with the iPhone, therefore Apple provides means to access Bluetooth.

Re: iOS 13’s privacy pop-ups of Facebook data grabs

#15

Post by thih9 »

tobr wrote: post #2

Funny, when trying to read this article, I got a privacy pop-up about creepy data grabs from “the Oath family”.

Temporarily disabling JS helps.

I usually don't want / remember to do that though, in these cases I skip "Oath family" articles. And I really dislike this popup, it links to 100+ privacy policies and some of them return 404 errors already.

Re: iOS 13’s privacy pop-ups of Facebook data grabs

#16

Post by bengotow »

vincentriemer wrote: post #4

Since installing the iOS 13 beta I've noticed a bunch of apps asking for bluetooth access. I haven't kept track of every one but I do remember YouTube and Netflix asking for it on their first launch. Thankfully, I haven't witnessed any app failing to work by denying the request though.

The Bird (scooter) iPhone app asked me for Bluetooth. It said something about "nearby scooters" which I think is a flat out lie because you unlock them via QR code? Probably also tracking...

Re: iOS 13’s privacy pop-ups of Facebook data grabs

#17

Post by oflannabhra »

I've been using the iOS 13 developer beta for a couple months, and I can confirm that within the first week, several apps from the big 4 requested permissions for things that should be absolutely unnecessary.

iOS 13 has several great privacy-focused changes:

- WiFi SSID is protected behind location permissions (ie, an app must request and be granted location permissions to be able to access the current SSID)

- Bluetooth has additional permission prompts (as detailed in the article)

- When an app has been using location data, the user is periodically prompted to confirm continued background location use (with a map of locations the app has used).

- Safari has several on top of all these, like prompting a user to allow cross-site cookie loading, etc

In some of these, Apple is catching up to Android, and in others, it is ahead. Either way, it seems that most of these come from a directive from inside Apple to clean up 3rd party app behavior, likely prompted by things like last year's analytics & enterprise deployment scandals.

Re: iOS 13’s privacy pop-ups of Facebook data grabs

#18

Post by uptown »

Tepix wrote: post #10

Tell your non-it friends to uninstall the facebook app and use the web browser interface instead if they want to stay on facebook. Preferably they also block all 3rd party cookies, use an ad-blocker and occasionally delete all cookies and reset their Ad-Id.

Is there an alternative to the Messenger app? I've been unable to convince some friends to move off of this.

Re: iOS 13’s privacy pop-ups of Facebook data grabs

#19

Post by oflannabhra »

uptown wrote: post #18
Tepix wrote: post #10

Tell your non-it friends to uninstall the facebook app and use the web browser interface instead if they want to stay on facebook. Preferably they also block all 3rd party cookies, use an ad-blocker and occasionally delete all cookies and reset their Ad-Id.

Is there an alternative to the Messenger app? I've been unable to convince some friends to move off of this.

m.basic.facebook.com used to allow you to use Messenger (although not a rich experience). However, Facebook and been closing access to messaging outside of the app for awhile now.

Re: iOS 13’s privacy pop-ups of Facebook data grabs

#20

Post by Tronno »

uptown wrote: post #18
Tepix wrote: post #10

Tell your non-it friends to uninstall the facebook app and use the web browser interface instead if they want to stay on facebook. Preferably they also block all 3rd party cookies, use an ad-blocker and occasionally delete all cookies and reset their Ad-Id.

Is there an alternative to the Messenger app? I've been unable to convince some friends to move off of this.

I've had some success getting friends and family to install Signal.
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