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Two weeks ago a report from Fast company pointed out that Google had not suspiciously updated the vast majority of its iOS apps since December 7, a day before Apple required developers to provide a privacy report for every app available on the App Store. Following that report, Google quickly fought back and said it would start updating its iOS apps with privacy labels as early as that same week, the week of January 4.
Two weeks later, Google still hasn’t updated the vast majority of its iOS apps with these privacy labels, including its popular apps like Gmail and YouTube. Even though Google has no malicious intent, this scattered approach leaves users perplexed and concerned.
According to data collected by 9to5Mac, the first Google application with the new App Privacy label on the App Store is Google Authenticator. This is Google’s popular two-step verification app, and it was last updated on December 7th.
Google Authenticator has a relatively short privacy label, with the company stating that location data, user content, credentials, and diagnostic data can be linked to the user.
Google Translate has also been updated with the new privacy label on the App Store:
As of the publication date, it appears these are the only two updated Google apps with privacy labels to date, more than a month after the requirement went into effect.
Interestingly, a few apps, such as Google Slides, have been updated since December 7 but still don’t display app privacy labels. The Google Slides app, for example, was updated on December 14, but Google still hasn’t provided details of its privacy practices to the App Store. Google’s Socratic educational app was updated on December 15, and it also doesn’t feature privacy details.
The original Fast company The report suggests that Google is avoiding updating its iOS apps due to the new requirement that all apps display these privacy labels. Apple began asking developers to submit their new privacy information to the App Store in order to update their apps on December 8. The privacy labels for the apps themselves became visible to users on December 14, coinciding with the release of iOS 14.3.
Following the Fast company report, Google issued a statement to TechCrunch, promising to start rolling out app privacy labels for its apps this week, the week of January 4, or next week. Google has since broken that promise and has not updated any additional apps with app privacy labels since then.
Google also included a little bit of info on these privacy labels in a blog post last week, again indicating that privacy labels are coming, but without a specific timeline:
As Google’s iOS apps are updated with new features or to fix bugs, you will see updates to our app page listings that include the new app privacy details. . These labels represent the maximum categories of data that can be collected, that is, if you are using all the features and services available in the application. The data you provide to Google products provides you with useful services and you can still control your privacy settings by visiting your Google Account or by directly accessing the Google products you use on iOS.
Taking 9to5Mac
Apple said there are several important pieces of information developers should remember when preparing app privacy “nutrition labels” for their apps:
- Developers should identify all possible data collections and uses, although some data will only be collected and used in limited situations.
- Developer responses should follow the App Store review guidelines and all applicable laws.
- The developers are responsible for keeping your answers accurate and up to date. If your practices change, update your answers in App Store Connect.
The purpose of this data is not to shame developers, but rather to give users more information about how their data is being used. If a user visits the App Store and notices that some apps collect more data than others, they can make more informed decisions about which apps to use.
There are various reasons why Google might avoid adding these tags, and not all of them are malicious.
First of all, it’s customary for developers to take a break from updating apps throughout the holiday season, even big companies like Google. For example, Chrome went from December 2019 to February 2020 without an update last year during the holidays.
On the flip side, Apple announced that these “nutrition labels” for app privacy would be required in November, so Google could have planned to have theirs ready on time and before the holidays.
Internally at Google, the task of adding the labels is likely to fall on each individual app team, with Google only providing general guidance. This could partly explain why Google Translate and Google Authenticator added privacy labels, but other apps didn’t.
Finally, you must be wondering how Google’s unique account system will affect these labels. Almost all Google apps require you to sign in with the same Google ID, which impacts privacy practices and makes it easier for Google to link data from different apps together.
Again, I’m not saying that Google is malicious in taking a scattered approach to deploying app privacy labels. As more and more apps add the labels and Google takes time, the more suspicious users will see the “no data provided” label on the App Store listings for Google apps.
Apple takes a cutting edge approach to educating users on how their data is being used. App privacy labels are only part of that approach, and Apple will soon be rolling out additional privacy controls related to cross-app tracking.
The optics of Google’s decision to take a slow, dispersed approach to rolling out app privacy labels is wrong, although Google’s intentions may not be. Ideally, the labels will come as soon as possible so that users have a better understanding of how their data is being used.
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