Apple privacy protection still questioned by Congress

U.S. Government officials are not happy with Apple's latest privacy policies even though CEO Tim Cook has given them a detailed response in regards to the protection of their customers.

Venturebeat reported that G.K. Butterfield and Henry Waxman, members of a congressional subcommittee dedicated to consumer protection have sent Apple a second letter to Tim Cook a few days ago. This time they requested that Apple brief the Energy and Commerce Committee on its practices.

The congressman wrote “The March 2 reply we received from Apple does not answer a number of the questions we raised about the company’s efforts to protect the privacy and security of its mobile device users.”

Venturebeat add “The questionable practices of iPhone applications collecting address book data without permission came to a head last month after VentureBeat exposed the common practice. Apple publicly addressed the kerfuffle and said it would use a future software release to require applications accessing contact data to get explicit user approval. The company also responded to the committee’s first formal inquiry with a letter from Cook (embedded below).

The New York Times, however, later discovered that apps can also copy photos from a user’s device without warning.

“Concerns have been raised about the manner in which apps can access photographs on your mobile devices and tools provided by Apple to consumers to prevent unwanted online tracking,” the congressmen said. “To help us understand these issues, we request that you make available representatives to brief our staff on the Energy and Commerce Committee.”

You can read more over here.

Kitguru says: Tim Cook will be ensuring that Apple meet the guidelines set out.

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