Google apps feel strain amid privacy standoff with Apple

Apple requires iOS apps to include a privacy “nutrition label”, listing the ways they use personal data

Google’s privacy standoff with Apple has continued for so long that now even its own apps are complaining about it.

Apple requires any iOS app to include a privacy “nutrition label”, which requires apps to list the ways in which they use personal data.

Those labels range from the shorter versions, which may include usage information for analytics to user IDs for the app’s sign-in functionality, to somewhat longer. For example, Facebook lists 80 different data categories it uses, for purposes such as tracking users to personalising the app.

However, Google has not yet provided its own labels. The company only has to do so when it updates its apps, which it stopped doing late last year. For example, the iOS version of Google Chrome was updated approximately every two weeks throughout 2020, until two months ago when it received its last update. Similarly, Google Photos, YouTube, Google Maps and Gmail were also updated almost weekly until two months ago.

In fact, only three of the 86 apps (Google Slides, Google Play Music and TV, and Google Translate) Google published on the iOS App Store, have been updated in 2021. Even out of these three, only one, Google Translate, has a privacy label, listing 25 ways personal data may be used.

So, almost all the iOS apps received their latest update two months ago, shortly before the new requirements came into effect.

Google’s apps began complaining about the lack of updates on Wednesday night. According to user reports on social media, Gmail, Google Maps and Google Photos warned their users that the app was “out of date”, even as the users were on the latest version.

You should update this app, the warning read. The version you’re using doesn’t include the latest security features to keep you protected. Only continue if you understand the risks, it stated.

Google will shortly face further pressures from Apple’s privacy push. Apple’s new feature called “App Tracking Transparency” feature will require applications to ask for permission before they are able to track users around the web. This has invited strong reaction from Facebook, which argues it will hurt online advertising, but Google has not yet responded to the requirement.