Congress asks Tim Cook for an explanation of iOS address book policy

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Congress asks Tim Cook for an explanation of iOS address book policy
The Path scandal revealed some dangerous negligence in the way Apple handles your address book data, and recent studies have confirmed that the scale of this is huge - apps like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all make use of the opportunity for free access to all of your contacts, and some apps do access them without even asking your permission.

This seems to counter Apple’s own philosophy on privacy as Steve Jobs himself has underlined numerous times the utmost importance of security of user data. That’s why we were relieved when Apple finally clarified that it’s going to take measures against frivolous interpretation of its guidelines and turn the guidelines into a rule:

“Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines. We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said for AllThingsD.

So overall, Apple has finally solved a problem that should have been addressed long time ago. Now, what’s interesting is that Cupertino has responded literally minutes after Congress sent a letter, asking for an explanation. Will it get a response beyond what Apple’s spokesperson has just said and does it really need it? Check out the letter below to see what Congress is concerned about.

source: AllThingsD

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