New iMac Feature: Search Monitoring

New iMac Feature: Search Monitoring

Apple was praised from civil liberties advocates recently. Its latest iOS feature has the power to prevent the company from extracting information from a device, which is protected with a passcode, though presented with a warrant. Yet, the concern of the company for security and privacy may stop there as Apple is now monitoring your searches.

According to NewsWeek, Apple held a product announcement where the firm revealed Yosemite OS X, which is the latest OS for Macs as well as iOS 8.1, the recent updated OS for handhelds. Both devices and desktops come with an internal Spotlight search in which users may look up for the saved apps and files. Yet, the new Spotlight functions of the operating system allow the company to collect user location and each keystroke of internal searches.

In the statement of Apple on Wired, the company said that they are committed to protecting their user's privacy and designed privacy right into their products. For the Spotlight Suggestions, they reduce the amount of information that is sent to them. Apple does not retain users' IP addresses on their devices. The new feature blurs the device's location so it don't sends the exact location to the giant company. Spotlight does not also use a persistent identifier. Therefore, the search history of the user can't be made by Apple or someone else. The devices of Apple only utilize a temporary anonymous ID for only fifteen minutes.

The statement of Apple only shows that through rotating ID numbers each 15 minutes, the company isn't making user profiles to deliver the targeted ads. But rather, this insists that the collection of data is only intended to enhance the search quality. Yet, that is not where the snooping ends.

Aside from search and location content, Spotlight can also download some websites that are about the topics related to search inquiries of users. According to The Washington Post, this might reveal sensitive information regarding the users and search activities they do.

This is a bit worrisome since Apple will share the collected data with the search engine owned by Microsoft, Bing. However, Apple insisted that Bing is prohibited from utilizing the information in creating user profiles for targeted ads.

 

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