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> If Apple wants to make privacy a selling point for their products, they would no doubt seize the opportunity to do so very loudly.

They have definitely been doing this over the past four or five years and certainly claim they aren't selling your data: https://www.apple.com/privacy/

That just raises the suspicion for me. That website is a far cry from "We don't collect your data, we don't sell any information about you". Instead, the closest they get is with the statement below:

"Whether you’re taking a photo, asking Siri a question, or getting directions, you can do it knowing that Apple doesn’t gather your personal information to sell to advertisers or other organizations."

That only applies to two things, taking a photo and asking Siri a question. It does not prohibit them from collecting the data for their own use. And does not prohibit them from selling analysis of that data.

At the bottom of that page there are links to more information.

https://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/

> Your iOS device can collect analytics about your iOS device and any paired Apple Watch and send it to Apple for analysis. The collected information does not identify you personally and can be sent to Apple only with your explicit consent.

You have to opt in to analytics collection when you set up the device and in Settings>Privacy>Analytics>Analytics Data you can examine or download everything which has been sent to Apple.

If you take Apple at their word that they're only collecting what they say they are, they're not bad.

You do explicitly consent when you agree to the terms of service. Additionally, further down in the paragraph you quoted:

"When it’s collected, personal data is either not logged at all, removed from reports before they’re sent to Apple, or protected by techniques such as Differential Privacy."

And the fact that you can download the data unquestionably proves that it can be traced back to you. I think you're just seeing what you want to see, and aren't paying attention to all of the loopholes they create for themselves.

> And the fact that you can download the data unquestionably proves that it can be traced back to you.

Not necessarily.

Apple has repeatedly and loudly talked about privacy up to and including Tim Cook saying the privacy is a "basic human right". Also it's quite easy to see what data is being sent from your phone, just hook it up to a proxy, ala Burp or Charles. It will dump all network communication from the phone and were it's going to. Here is a paper about the difference in data collection and how it's measured: https://digitalcontentnext.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DC...

I think they make a point of this fairly regularly, double blind machine learning (apologies if this is the wrong phrase..) and also on device facial recognicitan - ie. not on apples servers (as in Google’s / facebooks case).

I think it is highly unlikely to come out that they are selling company data. Look at all the comments that Tim Cook made about Facebook - that he wouldn’t be in that situation as it would compromise his morals etc..

> Short of a legally binding statement from Apple stating exactly what information they collect and who they sell it to, then you're just assuming they aren't collecting and selling your data.

Does the GDPR not require this?

Their strong selling point is to protect data. Apple makes money on their devices and Appstore, not on your data, how does Google.

If Apple wants to make privacy a selling point for their products, they would no doubt seize the opportunity to do so very loudly.

At the recent iPhone / Watch launch event a few days ago, Apple COO Jeff Williams stood on stage with a single word backdrop "Privacy" and said:

"At Apple we believe your personal information belongs to you, you should decide who you share your information with and who gets to see it. Period. All your (Watch) health and fitness data is encrypted on the device and in the cloud".

- https://youtu.be/wFTmQ27S7OQ?t=1673

That's not a legally binding statement from Apple stating exactly what they collect, but it certainly is Apple making privacy a selling point and doing so very loudly.