Goodbye Tracking? Impact of iOS App Tracking Transparency and Privacy Labels

Understand

Tracking is a highly privacy-invasive data collection practice that has been ubiquitous in mobile apps for many years due to its role in supporting advertising-based revenue models.

• In response, Apple introduced two significant changes with iOS 14: App Tracking Transparency (ATT), a mandatory opt-in system for enabling tracking on iOS, and Privacy Nutrition Labels, which disclose what kinds of data each app processes.
• So far, the impact of these changes on individual privacy and control has not been well understood.
• This paper addresses this gap by analysing two versions of 1,759 iOS apps from the UK App Store: one version from before iOS 14 and one that has been updated to comply with the new rules.