Only recently, the tech giant was accused of circumventing its own tracking protection and collecting user data without authorization. Now the company is once again facing criticism.

Not so long ago, four plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit against Apple. The allegation: the US company had allegedly found a way to circumvent its own tracking protection "ATT". Researchers have now discovered that the breach could be even more far-reaching than previously thought. Specifically, the Apple Analytics data is said to contain an ID that allows iCloud users to be identified.

Not the first accusation against Apple

At the beginning of November 2022, the German-Canadian research group Mysk published data protection concerns via Twitter that affected millions of iPhone and Mac users. In their sights: the Instagram and Facebook apps. They are said to have logged clicks on advertisements, links and even text entries - via embedded JavaScript code - and forwarded them to Apple. Despite the user's prior refusal of tracking.

Which user data was really transmitted?

Now Mysk is once again making serious accusations against Apple. This time it is about a user ID called "DSID" (Directory Services Identifier). This is an ID number that is linked to the iCloud account of the respective user and cannot be changed. According to Mysk, this ID is to be transmitted to Apple as part of the data collection process. The problem is that it is identifiable, i.e. linked to all data in the iCloud. This includes the user's full name, email address and birthday. In this way, Apple can personalize each data transfer and assign it to a specific person, according to the accusation.

Possible consequences not foreseeable

If the allegations are true, the iPhone company could potentially find itself confronted with numerous new (class action) lawsuits. This is because Apple's privacy policy states that "none of the information collected personally identifies the user" and "personal data is not logged". Aside from the financial consequences, the allegations pose an even bigger problem for Apple: its carefully built image as a privacy-friendly tech company could suffer lasting damage.