Apple finally allows you to download all your data

When the European Union's RGP privacy measures came into effect in May, the pressure to give Americans the same tools to visualize their data was strong. On Wednesday, Apple kept its promise to offer a data download service to its users in the United States. You can now find out what Apple has to offer in a few clicks.

Some companies, such as Facebook, already offer the ability to request the data they store on you and many people were shocked to learn about the huge amount of information collected and stored. Apple has been acutely aware of data privacy concerns over the last few years, and you may find that the most shocking aspect of your profile is that it does not contain much. Nevertheless, humans are still curious creatures and here's how you take a look at what Apple holds back from you:

1. Go to the Apple Privacy Portal and sign in. You must enter an authentication code if you have activated 2FA. If you do not have two-factor authentication, you should do it.
2. Once you are there, you will see some options and you want to click on "Get a copy of your data". You can choose the services from which you want to request the data, but you can also simply retrieve it.
3. You may need to perform additional checks and answer questions, but you will have to wait. It can take up to seven days for information to be compiled and sent as a zip file to your email address.

Together with the EU and the US, this tool should now be available in Australia, Canada, Iceland, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland. Otherwise, you can submit a form request for your data here. Apple uses encryption to anonymize your data to perform its own product analysis. What you are asking for is data that may be specifically related to your account and device.

Although you can choose a maximum file size for data dump, you probably will not have to worry about its size. I have not seen my personal details yet, but Zach Whittaker from ZDNet asked for his report last May and Apple provided it. It consisted of spreadsheets that totaled 5 MB. This is really tiny compared to most data-hungry companies. For example, a New York Times reporter discovered that Google was storing eight gigabytes of information about it. Personally, I find this horrible and going back to my online activities gives me the same feeling of hearing a recording of my voice. I usually avoid these dumps but I asked Apple a hope to feel some relief.

The new portal accompanies routine changes to Apple's privacy policy, which aligns seamlessly with improvements to iOS 12 and macOS Mojave. It's a good policy that is worth going through if you want to see how it should be done. Apple is largely not a data-driven company, so it does not have to fight against transparency as many do. Doing the right thing basically works as an advertisement for his products. Never forget that Apple is not your friend.