Mitchell Clark on Gmail labels in their iOS app

It is worth noting that Apple’s app privacy labels are meant to show all the things that the app might access, not what information that app will access. For example, an app may only use location data when it needs to show you a map, but the privacy labels don’t make that clear — it’s just a binary used/not used. Also, the information in the labels is submitted by the company itself, and Apple doesn’t make promises about its accuracy.

It seems that the privacy labels that Apple show are more than a little bit fuzzy. Whilst it’s easy to start to point fingers, there are lots and lots of moving parts in anything to do with apps, income and huge businesses. It can’t be easy to implement these kinds of privacy options, but it seems they are not over looked by Apple.

Much like the permissions systems, there is a lot to communicate to the customer exactly why the app needs certain types of data. Whilst you want to display this clearly, you don’t want to put people off entirely for risk of loosing business.

I’m still disappointed that these don’t go far enough, but it least we are on the right track.