Apple is facing another class action lawsuit over its purported practice of gathering and transferring analytics data from iPhone users without their consent.
The lawsuit is based on findings published in November by security researcher and developer Tommy Mysk, who claimed that Apple apps are amassing and sending data irrespective of whether or not the user assents to Apple gathering analytics data during the configuration process of a new iPhone.
The lawsuit expands on a previous suit filed in California in November 2022, but the new suit alleges infringements of state wiretapping, consumer fraud, and privacy laws.
Apple is also accused of violating Pennsylvania’s Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act, as well as its trade practices and consumer protection laws, by “representing that its mobile devices enable users to choose settings that would stop defendant from collecting or tracking their private data — a feature they do not have.”
It then accuses Apple of invading users’ privacy and claiming that it violated its implied contract with users “by continuing to track consumers who turned off these settings.” Furthermore, it claims that Apple can track user activity across multiple apps because the data analytics it collects share user ID numbers.
The App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, Books, and Stocks are specifically mentioned in the privacy lawsuit as having been observed sending real-time analytics data even when privacy settings were enabled.
The sources for this piece include an article in Cpomagazine.
