Apple has introduced a new App Store discovery feature called Personalized Collections, designed to show users app and game recommendations based on their interests and app usage. Apple says these recommendations can appear in the Apps, Games, and Search tabs and can change over time as users interact with apps and make downloads. The feature relies on analytics collected through user activity in the App Store.
Two security researchers argue that Apple’s data collection is unusually extensive. They report that the App Store sends detailed interaction data to Apple to generate recommendations, including what they describe as “every tap” a user enters or interacts with during searching. The researchers also say the captured information can be viewed in a data export request through Apple’s privacy portal, and they cite examples from screenshots intended to show the scope of the logged analytics.
In response to these concerns, the reporting notes that opinions differ on whether the level of tracking is an intrusion of privacy. The feature is presented as improving app discovery for developers, but some privacy advocates argue it should be opt-in rather than automatically enabled.
