Apple introduced many new or enhanced privacy features in Monday's WWDC keynote, most of which will come on iOS14 and macOS Big Sur

Some of these privacy additions are really impressive, and can lead to fundamental changes in how apps and websites treat users, while some others are just incremental

"At Apple, we believe that privacy is a fundamental human right," said Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering and super hair at Apple "Privacy is more important than ever

To that end, Federighi explains, Apple is trying to minimize the amount of data it collects about users by leveraging the processing power available on its computers and mobile devices

"We are avoiding data collection by processing as much information as possible on the device, rather than sending it to the server," he said

Similarly, Federighi said that Apple "seeks to provide transparency and control over your personal information so that we can better understand the data collected and make our own choices about how that data is used""

Here is a summary of all the major privacy features Apple announced this week, as well as us of how helpful we expect these tools to be

This is the coolest of the upcoming iOS privacy features Because it blurs the location information given to the app, the app and the ads that those apps show only give you a rough idea of where you are - in fact, it's only within a circular area of about 10 square miles

"You have the option to share your approximate location with the app," said software engineer Katie Skinner

In a background briefing yesterday (June23), an Apple representative explained that the feature makes it doubly difficult to guess exactly where you are because the common places the app gets don't necessarily focus on the actual place

Instead, the center point of that 10 square mile circle is on known or obvious landmarks such as government buildings or major intersections You'll still be able to get local recommendations for restaurants, parking, etc, but the app (and its ads) can't identify you to a few square feet as they can do today

Rating: 5/5

This isn't as cool as the approximate location, but it could force third-party apps, advertisers, and marketers to adopt a business model that doesn't depend on user behavior As Skinner explained, Safari already tells you which websites and cookies can track your behavior and block them, but these features have been rolled out to iOS apps

Starting with iOS14, iPadOS14, and tvOS14, all apps must obtain user permissions for tracking, and users can block them at any time This also applies to Apple's own apps

There are 2 exceptions to user privacy and data use, as detailed on Apple's developer page If the user or device's data is "linked to third-party data only on the user's device and not transmitted from the device in a way that can identify the user or device," the app does not need to ask for your permission to track them

Similarly, apps do not need to ask for your permission to track if they share data with third parties "solely for fraud detection, fraud prevention, or security purposes," such as to prevent credit card theft

Nevertheless, many iPhone users can be shocked to see how often the app tracks them and who their data is shared with, and hopefully that will lead app developers and advertisers to dial back user tracking

Evaluation: 45/5

As with app tracking control, this may change the way apps and third parties collect data for all smartphone users, not just iPhone users

"Wouldn't it be great to have a quick and easy overview of the app's privacy policy before you download the app?Software manager Erik Neuenschwander said during Monday's presentation

He said Apple took inspiration from the US Food and Drug Administration's nutrition Information box, which is mandatory for all retail food packaging To that end, every app in the Mac, iOS, iPad, Watch, and TV app store displays a brief summary of what kind of data the app collects about you and how it tracks you

"We're going to require each developer to self-report their own practices," Neuenschwander said

"I will show you what they have taught me," Skinner added "You can see if developers are collecting a little bit of your data, collecting a lot of data, or sharing the data with other companies to track you"We can already see what permissions and permissions each app has on the Google Play Store and the Windows App Store, but Apple doesn'tHowever, links to each developer's privacy policy or "nutrition labels" are not welcome in all app stores

Evaluation: 45/5

According to Federighi, the new API will allow developers to easily port extensions built for "other browsers", which is great, but the real interesting feature is browser extension usage management

"In other browsers, extensions have access to every page they access, every tab they open, and everything they enter"

It's true, and it has become a huge problem for Google's Chrome web store, which has been overrun by dangerous extensions that attempt to spy on users, therefore Apple's solution is to allow users to use Safari Browser constantly against only 1 day, only 1 website, or all websites" This is a feature that allows you to grant permissions to browser extensions This is pretty great and I hope Firefox and Chrome will adopt this feature soon

Rating: 4/5

Safari on the desktop has a Privacy Report button on the toolbar that immediately gives you a list of trackers for each website

"We want to give users more visibility into how each site they visit tries to track them and how Safari protects them," Federighi explained on Monday

Browser extensions such as Ghostery have been providing this kind of information to privacy-conscious Chrome and Firefox users for years

However, Safari's privacy report button has become a mainstream mass-market item, and many users may again be shocked at how often they are being tracked, and those sites may have to do much less tracking if they start avoiding sites that over-track them It is not

Evaluation: 35/5

Federighi seemed to believe this was the best of all Apple's new privacy and security features But it really does not change the game, it is a good thing that the existing accounts with third-party services to use you sign in with Apple instead of the usual username and password

Rating: 3/5

This is another gradual improvement At the moment, iOS provides limited notifications if the app uses the iPhone's camera or microphone

"We are adding more visibility for current or recent camera use," Neuenschwander said during Monday's presentation If the app is using either, indicate it in the status bar"

On iOS 14, iPad OS14, and Watch OS7 and later, a green indicator light appears in the upper-right corner of the screen when using the camera, and an orange indicator light appears when using the microphone This is regardless of whether the app that uses them is in the foreground or in the background

The iOS Control Center will tell you which apps are using the camera or microphone, and can also show which apps are using either recently

Rating: 3/5

Safari checks the passwords stored in the browser to see if they have been compromised with a known data breach Check if you have not already installed the software Both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome have already done this, so Apple will only catch up with this

Rating: 25/5