Patrick Holland/CNET
This story is part of
Apple Event
, our full coverage of the latest news from Apple headquarters.
One of
Apple's
biggest
privacy
changes in years has arrived in a software update you may barely even notice until after you install it on your
iPhone
. The new software, boringly named
iOS
14.5, was released Monday. It includes the typical fixes you'd expect in a minor software update. Apple will now allow people to
unlock their iPhone with their Apple Watch
, which is handy when wearing a face mask in public to protect against the
coronavirus
. People using Apple Maps can also
report accidents they see on the road
. And of course
there's new emoji
, like a heart on fire, a dizzy face and an exhaling face.
The most controversial change comes when people open up apps from companies like
. There, they'll be asked
whether they consent to having their activity tracked across apps and websites they use
. Facebook will begin including a message in its app to explain
what it uses this tracking for
, but it has also started a campaign
pushing back against Apple's approach
.
Apple's move, which it delayed from its original plans to implement the privacy features late last year, mark the latest way the tech giant is attempting to live up to its advertising promise of
offering software tools that guarantee better privacy
.
Whether you think it's a genuine effort to embrace CEO
Tim Cook
's mantra that "
privacy is a fundamental human right
," or merely a way to kneecap competition while looking good to customers probably depends on how you feel about Apple.
But Apple is making these moves as people are reckoning with how the internet truly works. Between Facebook's
Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal
, seemingly unrelenting streams of
hacking attacks
and
creepily well-targeted ads
appearing on
, Amazon and all manner of other sites we visit daily, users are starting to learn what they trade away for all those "free" services they use.
Buried deep in the agreements we all say yes to but almost never read, most tech companies have written in the right to surveil us on a level once thought possible only in science fiction. Companies can
track us across the apps we use
, sites we visit and shows we watch. They can learn where we spend our money and what we buy and pair that with the data from our closest friends to create
rich profiles
of who they think we are.
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As we've learned over the years, that data is worth unimaginable amounts of money. Facebook and Google may've kept their promise that they won't sell information about us to the highest bidder, but still, they have helped advertisers target us with shockingly precise advertising -- and Pew Research has found that many people
feel that's bad
.
In an interview with the Toronto Star on April 12, Cook said iOS 14.5 was created in part because
he believes people should be asked to give consent
to modern advertising techniques. In Apple's case, the new software
will include a pop-up
, asking users if they consent to allowing an app or company to "track" them "across apps and websites owned by other companies" in order to "deliver personalized ads to you."
"We think that some number of people -- I don't know how many -- don't want to be tracked like that," Cook said. "And they should be able to say they don't."
Though Apple's new iOS 14.5 privacy settings will push these issues front and center when they offer people an easy way to turn off more-invasive tracking, they won't put an end to the practice, though Google
promises it's easing up a bit
.
Apple's iOS 14.5 is available
free for iPhones and iPads
dating back to 2015's
iPhone 6S
and 2014's
iPad Air 2
.
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