Four Democratic deputies asked the American consumer policeman to clarify the practices of the two digital giants.
The collection of personal data organized by GAFAM has been a more than sensitive subject for several years for the regulatory authorities of the various States.
A vitriolic letter signed by four Democratic parliamentarians
the wall street journal We learn today that four American Democrat parliamentarians, including Elizabeth Warren, unsuccessful candidate for her party’s nomination for the 2020 presidential elections, have written to the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). They wanted to request the opening of an investigation into the practices of Apple and Google in the collection of personal data through their iOS and Android smartphone operating systems.
The deputies and senators explain in their missive that the two companies ” knowingly facilitated these harmful practices by embedding advertising-specific tracking identifiers into their mobile operating systems “.
Apple and Google make efforts to limit data collection and avoid retaliation
Apple and Google have however recently taken the subject head on to limit the amount of personal data. iOS now introduces App Tracking Transparency, a new system that requires apps to ask users for consent to collect a limited amount of personal data. Android is also less intrusive and tries to make the information received more anonymous.
These efforts, far from being welcomed by parliamentarians, are considered insufficient: ” It is often possible to easily identify a particular consumer in a data set of “anonymous” location registrations by looking at where they sleep at night. They also explain that Apple, until recently, enabled the tracking ID by default, and that Google did not see fit today to disable it when launching a device on its system. Android.
The signatories of the letter also explain that the two giants have only recently tightened the screw on the collection of personal information after years of laxity. ” These identifiers have fueled the unregulated market for data brokers by creating a single piece of device-related information that brokers and their customers can use to link to other consumer data. “, recall the parliamentarians.
It is now up to Lina Kahn, the new president of the FTC who is very proactive on the subject of user data management, to decide whether or not to open an investigation into the two Silicon Valley groups.
On the same subject :
(Re)becoming anonymous on the Internet, the new trend of the 2020s?
Source : 9to5Mac
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