Apple

Apple moves to stop apps such as Facebook and Twitter accessing iPhone address books without permission

Concerns over apps which access store and send highly private contact information
Apps such as Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter
Apple says apps are 'in violation' of privacy policies
U.S. legislators request clarification from Apple CEO Tim Cook


Apple moved to stem a privacy controversy over iPhone apps accessing users' address books without permission and sending the private data to other computers.

The company will begin to require iPhone and iPad apps to seek 'explicit approval' before accessing users’ address book data.

Fears were raised that the highly private and sensitive data could be intercepted and misused, after it was revealed that companies stored and transmitted it on their own servers, sometimes in unencrypted plain text.

After a controversy over a social network Path uploading names and phone numbers to remote computers, technology bloggers discovered that iPhone apps like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Foodspotting similarly uploaded user data - without permission, in some cases.

Two members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce committee requested the company to provide more information about its privacy policies.

'Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines,' said an Apple spokesman.

'We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release.'


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In a letter addressed to Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, Representatives Henry Waxman of California and G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina, both Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, asked Apple to clarify its developer guidelines and the measures taken by the company to screen apps sold on its App Store.

The letter came after Path, a San Francisco startup that makes a Facebook-like social networking app, attracted widespread criticism last week after a Singaporean developer discovered that Path’s iPhone app had been quietly uploading his contacts’ names and phone numbers onto Path’s servers.

The Path incident 'raises questions about whether Apple’s iOS app developer policies and practices may fall short when it comes to protecting the information of iPhone users and their contacts,' the letter said.

The legislators’ request for information cast the spotlight squarely onto Apple for the first time since an independent blogger, Dustin Curtis, wrote in a widely distributed post last week that 'there’s a quiet understanding among many iOS app developers that it is acceptable to send a user’s entire address book, without their permission to remote servers and then store it for future reference.'

Curtis blamed Apple, writing that he could not 'think of a rational reason for why Apple has not placed any protections on Address Book in iOS.'

In their letter to Apple, Waxman and Butterfield, referenced Curtis’ blog post, adding: 'There could be some truth to these claims.'

The legislators had asked Apple to submit its response by February 29.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2101934/Apple-moves-stop-Facebook-Twitter-accessing-iPhone-users-address-books-permission.html#ixzz1mXrE2NG8