The good student of private life condemned. Apple was fined 8 million euros by the Cnil on December 29. The French gendarme criticizes the Cupertino company for its management of advertising cookies on the App Store, under iOS 14.6.
Implied consent
After a complaint concerning the management of advertising tracking on the Apple application store, the CNIL carried out several checks between 2021 and 2022. The regulator’s services then noted the absence of clear consent before the deposit of advertising cookies on the App Store, in version 14.6 of iOS, Apple’s operating system. “When a user went to the App Store, identifiers serving several purposes, including the purposes of personalizing the advertisements broadcast on the App Store, were by default automatically read on the terminal without obtaining consent.“, specifies the Cnil.
However, the deposit without consent of cookies that are not vital for the use of the application is illegal in France under the Data Protection Act (article 82). In fact, the Commission considers that the user’s consent was not explicit. “Ad targeting settings available from the iPhone ‘Settings’ icon were pre-checked by default“, explains the administration. Moreover, the procedure to access the choice in terms of advertising tracking seemed too tedious in the eyes of the Cnil. Indeed, the user had to go to “Settings” then “Privacy” and finally “Apple Advertising.” A procedure deemed invalid for “collect the prior consent of users“, judges the Cnil.
Apple will appeal
The position of the European Court of Justice and the courts is “very clear” since “years“: proper consent”cannot be a pre-checked box“, justified Louis Dutheillet de Lamothe, secretary general of the Cnil to AFP. In addition, the fine imposed on Apple is measured taking into account the “processing limited to the App Store“, of “number of people involved“, of the “profits that the company derives from advertising revenue indirectly generated from the data collected by these identifiers“, and the rapid compliance of the firm.
For its part, Apple challenges the decision of the data constable. “We are disappointed with this decision, as the CNIL has previously acknowledged that the way we serve ads in the App Store prioritizes the protection of user privacy, and we will appeal“, announces the group to our colleagues from AFP.