<story><title>Our Approach to Privacy</title><url>https://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>greggman</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m happy Apple is at least trying hard to deal with privacy but honestly I don&amp;#x27;t think they are doing enough, at least for me.&lt;p&gt;For example, I don&amp;#x27;t really want to give most apps constant access to my photos, my camera, or my mic but I really don&amp;#x27;t have a whole lot of choice if I still want to use popular apps and services like Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Hangouts, Line, WhatsApp etc..&lt;p&gt;I really wish that every time they wanted a photo they had to get it through some OS level UX and they only got to see the photos I selected. As it is they get to see all my photos the moment I want to give them a single photo. Similarly if I take a photo in one of them they require permission to read all my photos when all I want them to be able to do is save the photo.&lt;p&gt;As for the Camera I don&amp;#x27;t give any of those apps access to the camera because I don&amp;#x27;t trust them not to spy on me in some way (I assume camera = mic access so they could be doing the subsonic listening for ads things etc...). Instead I take the picture with the built in app then access that picture from the app I want to use the picture in. Of course that leads to the problem above.&lt;p&gt;Mic access is more problematic. I don&amp;#x27;t want any of them to have mic access when I&amp;#x27;m not using the mic function directly but I can&amp;#x27;t talk to my friends who use all those services to call me if I don&amp;#x27;t give the apps mic access.&lt;p&gt;I feel like if Apple was more serious about privacy they&amp;#x27;d handle these issues in some way. The photo one seems mostly straight forward for most use cases. Don&amp;#x27;t let the app access them at all, only the OS. The camera one is less straight forward. I get that there are innovative things apps can do with the cameras by using them directly. On the other hand most of the current use cases could be handled by letting the OS access the camera only, not the app, and then just giving the result to the app.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chillaxtian</author><text>They actually are changing the Photos privacy defaults in iOS 11: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;developer.apple.com&amp;#x2F;videos&amp;#x2F;play&amp;#x2F;wwdc2017&amp;#x2F;505&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;developer.apple.com&amp;#x2F;videos&amp;#x2F;play&amp;#x2F;wwdc2017&amp;#x2F;505&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Apps won’t need to ask for permission to your entire library - the Photo picker will just appear, and only user selected photos will be available to the app.&lt;p&gt;On the iOS 11 GM at the moment, Facebook still seems to need access to my entire library. So perhaps it is only for apps that link against iOS 11. Guess we’ll see soon.</text></comment>
<story><title>Our Approach to Privacy</title><url>https://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>greggman</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m happy Apple is at least trying hard to deal with privacy but honestly I don&amp;#x27;t think they are doing enough, at least for me.&lt;p&gt;For example, I don&amp;#x27;t really want to give most apps constant access to my photos, my camera, or my mic but I really don&amp;#x27;t have a whole lot of choice if I still want to use popular apps and services like Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Hangouts, Line, WhatsApp etc..&lt;p&gt;I really wish that every time they wanted a photo they had to get it through some OS level UX and they only got to see the photos I selected. As it is they get to see all my photos the moment I want to give them a single photo. Similarly if I take a photo in one of them they require permission to read all my photos when all I want them to be able to do is save the photo.&lt;p&gt;As for the Camera I don&amp;#x27;t give any of those apps access to the camera because I don&amp;#x27;t trust them not to spy on me in some way (I assume camera = mic access so they could be doing the subsonic listening for ads things etc...). Instead I take the picture with the built in app then access that picture from the app I want to use the picture in. Of course that leads to the problem above.&lt;p&gt;Mic access is more problematic. I don&amp;#x27;t want any of them to have mic access when I&amp;#x27;m not using the mic function directly but I can&amp;#x27;t talk to my friends who use all those services to call me if I don&amp;#x27;t give the apps mic access.&lt;p&gt;I feel like if Apple was more serious about privacy they&amp;#x27;d handle these issues in some way. The photo one seems mostly straight forward for most use cases. Don&amp;#x27;t let the app access them at all, only the OS. The camera one is less straight forward. I get that there are innovative things apps can do with the cameras by using them directly. On the other hand most of the current use cases could be handled by letting the OS access the camera only, not the app, and then just giving the result to the app.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spsful</author><text>I agree with this but just so you know mic and camera access are two different things and iOS users get two different prompts if an app wants camera AND mic access</text></comment>