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Apple Outlines Developer Tools Available for Complying With the EU's New Data Regulation Rules

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icloudkitApple today told developers that it is offering a set of tools to help them fulfill data requests made by users in the European Union or other places around the world to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that goes into effect in May.

Following the implementation of the GDPR developers will need to comply with customer requests for accessing, managing, restricting, and deleting data. To facilitate this, Apple says developers can let users manage data that's associated with an app and stored in iCloud by using native APIs and Web APIs.

You can let users manage data that's associated with your app and stored in iCloud by using native APIs and Web APIs.

Providing User Access to CloudKit Data
Give users access to the data stored by your app on their behalf.
When a user requests a copy of the data associated with their Apple ID, it includes only the data that Apple maintains directly, such as documents in iCloud Drive. Data stored in third-party CloudKit containers are not included in any export that Apple provides. Developers should provide their own method for users to get a copy of data stored in their CloudKit containers.

Responding to Requests to Delete Data
Provide options for users to delete their CloudKit data from your app.

Apple too will be implementing new features to comply with the new European regulations. Starting in Early May, the company will introduce an updated Apple ID website that will allow users to download all of their data stored with the company.

Apple also plans to allow customers to use the site to correct personal information, disable Apple ID accounts, and permanently delete an Apple ID. These tools will be available in Europe first before expanding to other areas of the world.

Top Rated Comments

111 months ago
Just like the EU came down on MS for including IE ensuring dominant market share, once again the world will benefit from EU regulation. Europe tends to look out and protect consumers a lot more than our bought off Congress which always looks the other way while corporations do what they want.

I think it’s great that we’ll be able to download everything Apple has. I wonder if I’ll find photos and documents that I deleted a while ago. While Apple is not as dependent on our personal data is Facebook and Google are, it’s still a good idea to keep them honest.

In fact, although some Google products are superior like Maps and Google’s assistant, I simply don’t use them because of the rampant data collection. I do exclusively use google as a search engine since they have the best product. Also gmail since I’ve had it since the invite only days and it revolutionized e-mail. I refuse to use Docs, Photos and Drive since I just don’t trust them with the contents of my hard drives. The only way to protect your data is to keep it local. I use iCloud for convenience but only for stuff that is not really sensitive. I would never upload my entire drive to iCloud either.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
111 months ago
Just like the EU came down on MS for including IE ensuring dominant market share, once again the world will benefit from EU regulation. Europe tends to look out and protect consumers a lot more than our bought off Congress which always looks the other way while corporations do what they want.

I think it’s great that we’ll be able to download everything Apple has. I wonder if I’ll find photos and documents that I deleted a while ago. While Apple is not as dependent on our personal data is Facebook and Google are, it’s still a good idea to keep them honest.

In fact, although some Google products are superior like Maps and Google’s assistant, I simply don’t use them because of the rampant data collection. I do exclusively use google as a search engine since they have the best product. Also gmail since I’ve had it since the invite only days and it revolutionized e-mail. I refuse to use Docs, Photos and Drive since I just don’t trust them with the contents of my hard drives. The only way to protect your data is to keep it local. I use iCloud for convenience but only for stuff that is not really sensitive. I would never upload my entire drive to iCloud either.
While back, I also thought that google search engine was the best.

But now I use DuckDuckGo and never look back. For my privacy concerns and my needs, there is probably nothing better
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
simonmet Avatar
111 months ago
They never did. E-Mail has been around for 30 years and never needed any Google treatment.

Just like WhatsApp "revolutionised" messengers. They were readily available on all platforms. Here comes WhatsApp, limits use to a friggin phone, makes you upload your number and those of all people you know to their servers, shares it with Facebook and lo and behold, it's all the rage. Senseless, mindless hype is all it is.
That was my point in asking the rhetorical question. :)
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Apple Fritter Avatar
111 months ago
How did gmail revolutionise email?
They never did. E-Mail has been around for 30 years and never needed any Google treatment.

Just like WhatsApp "revolutionised" messengers. They were readily available on all platforms. Here comes WhatsApp, limits use to a friggin phone, makes you upload your number and those of all people you know to their servers, shares it with Facebook and lo and behold, it's all the rage. Senseless, mindless hype is all it is.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
111 months ago
I'm one for privacy, and the GDPR's intentions are noble on its face, but the incredibly vague language and requirements are going to drive a huge number of websites and app makers out of business. If your favourite app or website is ad supported, expect it to hit some very rough times ahead.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
simonmet Avatar
111 months ago
They produced the best web-mail service at the time with lots of free storage growing by the year. It also eliminated having to manually configure often problematic ISP e-mail within mail clients.
Maybe so, but that free storage had other costs (like advertising and dubious privacy) while loads of competitors sprang up pretty quickly. Maybe they effectively killed Hotmail, but I’d hardly describe them in such superlative terms as “revolutionary”!

I’ve never used it personally. I love Fastmail.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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