Apple’s new ad highlights its app tracking transparency and mail privacy protection feature
India Today
Apple’s latest ad revolves around a young girl named Ellie, who enters an old theatre-like hall, where she discovers that her personal data is being auctioned.
Apple’s latest ad depicts how the iPhone’s app tracking transparency feature and mail privacy protection save your data from getting auctioned. Apple has introduced the app tracking transparency feature with iOS 14.5. This feature keeps your data more private as the apps do not have the power to track your activities and your personal data without your permission. When an app wants to use your data,your phone displays a pop-up saying "Allow [app] to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites?" If you choose “Ask app not to track”,the apps will not be able to access your data.
Apple’s latest ad revolves around a young girl named Ellie, who enters an old theatre-like hall, where she discovers that her personal data is being auctioned. The audience can be seen placing bids on her iPhone's emails, purchase history, location data, contacts, browsing history, and other data that are supposed to remain private. She then uses the app Tracking Transparency and Mail Privacy Protection, which removes the auctioneers from the scene. The ad has a Victorian backdrop and is set in an era when phones did not exist.
The idea is to showcase how the personal data of users is at stake and can be sold on the black market if users are agile enough. The ad also shows how data can be lost if users don't make use of Apple's App transparency feature and mail privacy protection.
Apple once revealed how mobile apps are loaded with trackers that aim to extract personal information of users. The Cupertino-giant has stated that the "sole purpose of collecting and tracking people and their personal information.” Apple’s new ad represents how the personal data of users is used once it is collected by mobile apps.
App Tracking Transparency lets users choose whether they want an app to track their activity across apps and websites. The app tracking transparency feature is available on devices running iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, TVOS 14.5, or later.
Similarly, the Mail Privacy Protection stops email senders from accessing information about a user's email activity. The feature hides the user’s IP address and prevents senders from seeing if the user opened their emails when the feature is enabled. The feature is available on devices running iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, and watchOS 8, and later.
