WWDC23 What you don’t know – How does Apple protect privacy?

WWDC23 Apple's Privacy Protection

The WWDC23 has officially come to an end. Those who are eager to try new things have already upgraded their devices to the latest system. Those who are interested in hardware can also feel the help of the new Mac in their work during the summer, or peek into Apple’s future through Apple Vision Pro.

It is said that no company in the world is better at product marketing than Apple. However, we should not only focus on the highlights of those press conferences, but also explore how Apple maintains its own moat through understanding the details that we have not paid attention to at the WWDC developer conference.

If you browse the Apple official website and scroll to the bottom, you will see a module called “Apple Values”. The accessibility, education, environmental responsibility, privacy, and supplier responsibility below it also interpret Apple’s values from different perspectives.

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Today, let’s explore one of them, “privacy”.

Privacy is everyone’s basic right and also one of our core values. Therefore, the concept of designing products and services is to protect privacy, and we believe that this is the real innovation.

In fact, in various electronic devices that we are using today as technology continues to develop, there are various privacy information. In the eyes of many internet companies, these privacy information can outline a clear profile and can be used to accurately push advertisements to generate revenue. However, not everyone wants to make their privacy information public, nor do they want internet companies or individuals to profit by obtaining personal privacy information.

Privacy information, as a very private type of information, should be shared and with whom to share it should be left to the user’s own choice, rather than being decided by the device or a third party. As early as three years ago at WWDC20, Apple introduced the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework. When you see a request from an app to track your activities, you can choose “Ask App Not to Track” to prevent the app from tracking your activities and eliminate more accurate advertising push.

Although there were not many descriptions about privacy at this year’s WWDC23, it does not mean that Apple did not introduce new privacy-related features. On the contrary, more comprehensive privacy protection features have already been integrated into various corners of the Apple ecosystem. After the new system is officially launched this autumn, users can enjoy more abundant privacy protection.

After updating to iOS 17, my favorite privacy protection feature is “Protection of Sensitive Content”. In the new system, the protection of sensitive content covers the photos selected through AirDrop, the entire system’s photo selector, FaceTime call information, business card posters in the Phone app, and the content sent and received by third-party apps. By covering a wider range, it ensures that users can also pay attention to their privacy when sharing sensitive information.

When we share sensitive content with others, iOS 17 will pop up a thoughtful reminder:

This very thoughtful feature also stems from the progress of Apple’s self-developed chips. Thanks to the powerful neural network engine inside the A-series chips, the system can analyze the elements in the photos locally and prompt us to pay attention to privacy when appropriate. It is important to note that this technology is completely calculated by the chip on the device side and does not require networking, so you don’t have to worry about your photos being uploaded to the server.

In my opinion, the emergence of this technology may also reduce the privacy leaks caused by “misoperation”. For example, when transferring a large number of photos to others, if a photo containing private content is accidentally included, this well-intentioned reminder in the iOS system may avoid the adverse effects caused by misoperation.

In addition to protecting sensitive photos and videos, the privacy function upgrade for Safari browser is also worth paying attention to, as the browser has long been an app that we need to use frequently in our daily lives. In iOS 17, the incognito browsing mode can lock the incognito browsing window when idle. When you need to enter again, you need to provide your face ID/touch ID or password again. In the background, Safari browser can completely block known trackers from loading pages and remove tracking parameters added to URLs when browsing.

Safari

The protection of privacy is not only limited to the new system, but also includes the latest hardware released by Apple. When Apple Vision Pro was released, Apple emphasized various protection measures related to privacy. After touch ID and face ID, Optic ID based on iris also came to the Apple ecosystem. Like the previous unlocking methods, the data of Optic ID is also encrypted, and all data can only be accessed by the Secure Enclave inside the chip. This also means that the data security of Optic ID is completely the same as that of touch ID and face ID, and can also ensure the security of our personal biological information.

Optic ID

Compared with traditional mobile phones and computers, Apple Vision Pro needs to obtain more information related to users during use, such as eye movements and gestures, which need to be constantly analyzed and processed. When Apple Vision Pro processes this information, it is all done locally, and eye movements and gestures will not be shared with any third-party applications or websites. From the official demonstration, we can also see that when we operate in the space of Apple Vision Pro, the device will only transmit the coordinates of the space instead of the content, and the device will not know what we are looking at.

Apple Vision Pro will process privacy-related information locally

It is not difficult to see that Apple regards privacy as its core value, which is not just limited to simple propaganda, but is integrated into every product by constantly exploring user scenarios and integrating privacy protection features. These privacy protection measures also allow us to store data on Apple devices with peace of mind.

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