Apple sentenced to pay a fine of 8 million euros in France, we explain why

Apple has just received a rare sanction in terms of the protection of privacy in France. The National Commission for Computing and Liberties (CNIL) announced that it had imposed a penalty of 8 million euros on the manufacturer of the iPhone.

The CNIL does not laugh it with the protection of the data of the French, and has just attacked the most important company in the world: Apple. The regulator found that the US tech giant did not ” obtained the consent of French iPhone users (iOS version 14.6) before depositing and/or registering identifiers used for advertising purposes on their terminals “, According to a press release.

Apple has therefore just been fined a rather rare fine of 8 million euros. It comes only shortly after a French court fined the company €1 million for its App Store-related business practices last December.

Also read – iPhone: Apple is again accused of planned obsolescence in France

Apple does not ask for user consent

Under French data protection law, the collection of these identifiers could not be considered strictly necessary for the provision of a service and be exempted from the obligation of prior consent. Therefore, identifiers should not have been collected without users’ prior consent.

The CNIL fine specifically targets search ads in Apple’s App Store. She also notes that the targeted advertising settings available from the iPhone’s “Settings” icon were pre-checked by default. Users therefore had to perform too many actions to disable this settingmaking consent too difficult to give and withdraw.

While the size of the ePrivacy fine isn’t likely to hurt Apple’s annual profits too much, the company has for years now relied on Apple’s reputation for privacy excellence. its users and differentiate iPhones from cheaper devices running Google’s Android platform. The problem is that any damage to its reputation for protecting user data could therefore hurt. At any rate, we know that Apple’s privacy announcements are not always accurate, since iPhones are often much more affected by security issues than some Android smartphones.