Apple is facing a third class-action lawsuit in New York over data collection on its iPhones. Despite the company’s own privacy settings, Apple is collecting analytics data about how users use their phones, potentially revealing sensitive information such as sexual orientation and religious beliefs. The lawsuit claims that this data collection violates users’ privacy rights and goes against Apple’s own stated policy of respecting users’ ability to control their personal data. Here are the details…

New York lawsuit seeks $5 million in damages from Apple over iPhone data collection

Apple faces a third class-action lawsuit in New York over data collection on its iPhones. The lawsuit says, even under the company’s own privacy settings, Apple collects analytics data about how users use their iPhones. The text of the third lawsuit is nearly identical to the second. Paul Whalen, the attorney who sued Apple in the New York case, said it wasn’t an inadvertent wrongful case, but that Apple knowingly promised one thing and did the exact opposite.

This data collection, which includes detailed real-time information about everything users do in certain apps, such as the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV and Stocks, can raise serious privacy concerns. For example, searches and downloads of specific apps in the App Store can reveal Information about a user’s sexual orientation, religion, or even sensitive health issues. The data is transferred via a permanent ID number tied to an iCloud account, linking the data to the user’s name email address and phone number.

Apple hasn’t responded to any media inquiries about the issue since Gizmodo first reported it in November, despite repeated requests. The company’s privacy policy states that they respect users’ ability to know, access, correct, transmit, limit, process and delete their personal data, but that doesn’t seem to be the case when it comes to restricting data processing on the iPhone.

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