WhatsApp has hit Apple back on its proposed privacy labels for applications in the App Store, reports Axios, claiming that it is unreasonable that they do not seem to protect iMessage’s pre-installed first-party service, since it is not available on the App Store. The Facebook-owned messaging service officially sent its privacy label information to Apple on Monday and released a FAQ detailing what each label means in terms of the data processing of the system and why it needs this knowledge.
“We believe that labels should be consistent across first-and third-party apps, as well as reflecting the strong measures that apps may take to protect people’s personal information,” WhatsApp said in a statement to Axios. While it said that giving users easy-to-read privacy information is a good start,” it added that it is important that people can compare this ‘ privacy nutrition’ labels from apps they install with apps that come pre-installed, like iMessage.”
Apple first introduced the new security label feature as part of a host of new privacy features at WWDC 2020. Like them on the nutrition labels used in packaged grocery stores, the company claimed that the feature can provide app users with more detail on the data they collect. As of 8 December, developers are expected to provide details when uploading new applications and updates, but Axios reports that it is not clear when they start to appear on the App Store.
This is not a move that we want to make, but unfortunately, Apple’s changes to iOS 14 have prompted this decision,” said Facebook at the time We know that this will have a serious impact on publishers’ ability to monetize via Audience Network on iOS 14, and, despite the efforts, it may make Audience Network so ineffective on iOS 14 that it may not make sense to offer it on iOS 14 in the future.”
Apple announced recently that this would delay the release of the privacy function until “early next year to enable users to develop the necessary improvements.
