We had a lovely potential user get in touch today to ask why we capture “so much” user data according to the App Store privacy panel for @Shareshot which is surprising.

[marcpalmer@iosdev.space]

I see some similar apps don’t have as many or any privacy declarations so they are not using any crash reporting or analytics or maybe they have not completed the forms correctly?

It seems unfair the system can “punish” developers who complete these honestly. None of it seems to be audited at all?

[bluetea@ioc.exchange]

@marcpalmer @Shareshot I guess 'user content' sounds like 'all my stuff'.

[shareshot@indieapps.space]

@bluetea @marcpalmer yeah… Apple puts that there if you say yes to user content being sent with support requests. If you mail us your content through the app… yes we will get it. ‍️ maybe we should say no to that.

[shareshot@indieapps.space]

@bluetea @marcpalmer also tho “data linked to you” feels wrong. We cannot link anything to anyone, all the ids are anonymous but Apple put that there if we use any analytics.

[johnbrayton@iosdev.space]

@marcpalmer I don’t think anonymous crash reporting and anonymous analytics falls under Data Linked to You. Based on the description in your post, I think the only data you collect is Diagnostics (Not Linked).

[marcpalmer@iosdev.space]

@johnbrayton yeah you’d think but I’m clearly reading Apple’s text about this wrong. The optional disclosure stuff says ALL of the criteria must be met and analytics do not meet the “infrequent and optional” clause.

[marcpalmer@iosdev.space]

@johnbrayton see

[oelsner@mastodon.social]

@marcpalmer @Shareshot not sure if it helps, but I followed TelemetryDeck‘s guide on how to answer the questions and ended up with the two in non-linked data only
https://telemetrydeck.com/docs/articles/apple-app-privacy/

[johnbrayton@iosdev.space]

@marcpalmer I agree that you have to disclose the analytics and crash reporting. It sounds like you indicated that you collect much more than this in the App Privacy page. Or maybe Apple is incorrectly summarizing what you indicated.

[marcpalmer@iosdev.space]

@oelsner @Shareshot thanks Luca I’ll take a look!

[dom@iosdev.space]

@marcpalmer @Shareshot what are you using for analytics? I’m surprised to see that data being linked to the person?

[marcpalmer@iosdev.space]

@dom @Shareshot telemetrydeck. Its not linked to the person, it is anonymous but it does identify unique devices.

[bluetea@ioc.exchange]

@Shareshot @marcpalmer it's so frustrating when wording doesn't say what you need it to say.

I guess it's a bit similar to the licensing complexities of social services, where they need to store and display your content, and the licensing terminology does read as 'we own your stuff'.

As a FLOSS enthusiast I should get across licensing, but I gave up on it ages ago. Certainly as a user I can say that distinguishing between a nefarious user agreement and a functional one is impossible.