Apple’s App Tracking Transparency or the ATT is a privacy update from Apple. While it was appreciated by privacy advocates, a Chinese system was trying to bypass the ATT.
Financial Times reports that the system known as CAID was letting apps bypass Apple ATT. It did so by meddling with the prompt which let users decide whether they want to be tracked. This system has been stopped by Apple by blocking updates for the apps that were using it.
How A Chinese System Bypassed Apple ATT
To understand this, you’ll have to understand the working of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency system. Apps can track you across websites, and this has been happening for years now. Apple’s new feature makes it necessary for an app to ask if you want to be tracked. You can deny the request and the app won’t be able to track you.
The Chinese system called the CAID claimed it was able to track users even after they’d declined the permission. The report says that the system was backed by the China Advertising Association and the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
However, local companies using CAID say that they were unaware if it was against Apple’s policies. The Cupertino giant has disabled CAID by disabling the App Store updates to the apps that were using the system.
Apple’s ATT has been one of the privacy measures lately taken by the company. At the WWDC 2021, Apple added more privacy features with the iOS 15 update. These include Private Relay, Hide My Email, and mail privacy protection, along with the implementation of the Apple ATT.
While Apple has been criticized for maintaining a walled garden, the company keeps warning users against sideloading. Removal of a system like CAID adds another arrow in Apple’s quiver of reasons to keep its airtight ecosystem intact.
