Since November 2022, four lawsuits have been brought against the mega-tech company, Apple Inc. for the flagrant disregard of user privacy, and for misleading marketing practices.
Of the four, two are filed in the Northern District of California for expressly violating California’s privacy laws including the California Invasion Of Privacy Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The lawsuits were filed following a November research report by Mysk which showed that the company allegedly continued to track user-activity, for users, including those who opted-out.
On behalf of consumers, the law firm of CaseyGerry has launched an investigation into these allegations.
According to Law360, Illinois resident, Dluzak is suing the company for misleading customers. “According to the company’s privacy policy, Apple customers who turned off the “Allow Apps to Request and Track, and the “Share iPhone Analytics” were no longer tracked. However, the Mysk report found that to be false and contradicts the marketing message put out by the company in campaigns such as, “Privacy. That’s iPhone,” and “Your iPhone knows a lot about you. But we don’t.”
According to Gizmodo, Apple changed their privacy language following the Mysk report, informing users that tracked information is used to improve Apple products and services. However, Mysk found that it was much more. Contrary to the company’s privacy policy statement that users can disable sharing Device Analytics altogether by turning off the Share iPhone Analytics setting, user data was still collected.
Even more concerning is, contrary to Apple’s promise that data collected is anonymous, further tests showed that user data collected included a Directory Services Identifier (DSID), which is a permanent number assigned to an individual and contained identifying information like name, email address, phone number and more.
An article in the Register discusses the complaint filed by California resident Julie Cima who found that she continued to be tracked despite taking actions to disallow app activity.
The complaint filed stated, “This activity amounts to an enormous wealth of data that Apple collects and uses for its financial gain.”
If you are an iPhone user and have been misled by Apple’s misleading privacy practices, please contact our attorneys at (619) 304-1611 for a confidential consultation.
