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Privacy is a growing concern in today’s world. Follow along with all our coverage related to privacy, security, what Apple and other companies are doing to keep your information safe, and what steps you can take to keep your information private.

New ‘App Privacy’ labels now live in the App Store, offering detailed overviews of app data practices

app privacy labels

Apple has made a handful of privacy announcements today. The company is rolling out new ‘App Privacy’ labels in the App Store, providing a more detailed and easy to read view of app privacy practices. It has also refreshed its Privacy webpage with new details and updated its privacy policy. Here is all of the information on today’s changes.

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Apple and Cloudflare team up to stop your ISP seeing which websites you visit

Apple and Cloudflare privacy initiative

Apple and Cloudflare have jointly developed a new Internet protocol designed to protect your privacy, by preventing your internet service provider (ISP) from seeing which websites you visit.

Currently, when you enter a web address into your browser, that address is passed to a Domain Name Server (DNS) which looks up the domain name in order to convert it to the numerical IP address needed to connect to it …

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Microsoft U-turn on user ‘productivity’ data in Office 365 and Teams

Microsoft U-turn on user data

Concerns about misuse of data on employee usage of apps like Office 365 and Teams has resulted in a rapid Microsoft U-turn.

The company had logged app usage data at a user level, and claimed enterprise customers could use the data to measure both the productivity and influence of their employees. Microsoft has now announced that it has heard the concerns about this and taken immediate action …

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Massive security fail by Apple allowed total remote control of iPhones via WiFi

Total remote control of iPhones demonstrated

A massive security failing by Apple allowed an attacker to take total remote control of iPhones within WiFi range. They would be able to download all the data on the phone, and even activate the iPhone’s cameras and microphones to provide real-time spying capabilities.

The vulnerability was not just a theoretical risk: a noted Google security researcher was able to demonstrate the capabilities by taking full remote control of an iPhone in another room …

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PSA: Don’t enable an Apple ID recovery key yet – or maybe ever

Apple ID recovery key

We explained way back in 2014 why you might want to have an Apple ID recovery key. In those days, it was an extra precaution you could take against getting locked out of your account.

Apple abandoned recovery keys when it switched to a smarter two-factor authentication process, before reintroducing them in a new form in iOS 14. However, they now work in a different way. You definitely won’t want to enable one now, and you may not want to do so ever …

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Apple’s ad-tracking system under attack by successful European privacy activist

Apple's ad-tracking system under attack

Apple’s ad-tracking system is under attack by a privacy activist with a successful track record of fighting Facebook and other tech giants.

Apple uses its own system known as IDFA (IDentifier For Advertisers) to assign a unique code to each of its devices, so that advertisers can track who has seen particular ads. But privacy campaigner Max Schrems claims that this breaches European law…

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[Update: Apple explains and addresses] Recent server outage reveals potential Mac privacy concerns

Mac M1 Apple Silicon privacy concerns

As Apple launched its new macOS operating system to the public yesterday, serious server outages occurred that saw widespread Big Sur download/install failures, iMessage and Apple Pay go down but more than that, even performance issues for users running macOS Catalina and earlier. We learned why that happened at a high-level yesterday, now security researcher Jeffry Paul has shared a deep-dive of his understanding along with his privacy and security concerns for Macs, especially Apple Silicon ones.

Update: Apple has shared a response to Paul’s concerns in an updated support document that includes what macOS does to protect your privacy and security, and three new steps it will take in the future for greater privacy and flexibility.

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Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee announces first step in privacy-for-all project, Solid

Solid

Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the concept of the world wide web back in 1989, has announced the first step in his privacy-for-all project, Solid. A Solid server is now available for any organization which wants to begin trialing the platform.

Solid was first announced back in 2018 as a way of giving control of user data to individuals, rather than to online services …

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Zuckerberg claims Apple’s ad-tracking policy will hurt small businesses

Zuckerberg attacks Apple's ad-tracking policy

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has claimed that a pending version of Apple’s ad-tracking policy will hurt small businesses when it is introduced next year. Further, he says Apple could damage the economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

Zuckerberg’s attack relates to a privacy change Apple originally made in iOS 14 and subsequently agreed to delay to give the ad industry time to react …

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You can now change your default iOS browser to Firefox or DuckDuckGo

change your default iOS browser

If you’ve updated to iOS 14, you can now change your default iOS browser to either Firefox or DuckDuckGo if you wish. Both browsers have been approved by Apple to take advantage of the new option to change your default web browser from Safari. (Google’s Chrome had already been approved.)

Both browsers claim that the switch will further boost your privacy protections …

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