Apple has recently been accused by some of its customers to be selling customer information. The process of selling these information goes against the company's own privacy policies. Here's what we know about this case.
According to Time, three iTunes customers from Michigan and Rhode Island filed a federal court case against the smartphone giant. These customers aim to represent their home states where Apple owners has supposedly had their personal information revealed. Selling off these information goes against Apple policy of "Whatever happens in your iPhone stays in your iPhone."
The complainants note that selling off these information is unlawful and provides information to people who want to target vulnerable persons. The lawsuit also notes that Apple is said to be able to sell lists of people depending on their product and content preferences. The complainants note that these actions compromise Apple owners' identity and can be abused.
To compensate for this problem, the complainants seek to be paid for damages according to their state's laws. The group seeks to obtain $250 for reach Rhode Island iTunes user who had their information revealed. Meanwhile, the group would also collect $5,000 for each Michigan user if they win this case.
So far, Apple has yet to respond to this lawsuit. The case is named as Wheaton v Apple .,19-cv-02883, U.S District Court, Northern District of California.
Previously, Apple has taken a stance where they've policed against apps that takes a user's health data. Similar to the idea noted in the lawsuit, these apps would sell the health information to help tailor ads to these users. Once sold, these users who've trusted these apps would start seeing ads about related medicine to the illnesses they've just described to their phone.
Apple has also policed some apps who've attempted to use corporate-grade technology to provide child monitor services to parents through an app. However, Apple has personally stopped these apps as their technology is too risky to use outside of business networks. Lastly, Apple wants a lawsuit about their Apple Watch batteries dumped as the complainant failed to meet with the court's standards.
For now, we'll have to wait on how this Apple's statement about this issue and how will this lawsuit end.
This article was first published in IBTimes US. Permission required for reproduction.
