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Comment by pwaivers | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone else think this is really cool? This makes me think even more that Apple is really a supporter of privacy and a good actor. What do you think?

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Google and even Facebook have had this for quite some time. So nothing new here - it's a GDPR requirement.

> Google, Microsoft and even Facebook have had this for quite some time.

Deployed and available outside the EU, and more specifically in the US?

The Data Liberation Front team was formed at Google in 2007, and released Google Takeout in 2011, worldwide, well before the other big companies had anything similar in place.

http://dataliberation.blogspot.com/2011/06/data-liberation-f...

For more up-to-date information see the Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Data_Liberation_Front#c...

This service works quite well, I'm using it to backup the whole of my Google data every few months, including Gmail, Photos and Drive.

To be fair, Apple has for the longest time allowed export of contacts (.vcard), calendar items (.ics), photos (several formats), music (except for music purchased in the iTunes store for some time that was DRMd), mailboxes, etc.

While I feel locked in to an extent because I don't want to give up macOS/iOS/watchOS and their integration, I never felt that my data was locked up with Apple.

Apple Notes is different. Notes stored in iCloud (default for iOS & macOS) are stored in a fairly inaccessible local database. They cannot be exported to any format other than single notes as PDFs. The service offers no public API.

Although you can transfer them to any IMAP enabled service, and then export them (emails essentially) however you want

It's different.

Google Takeout was/is a nice user feature. Google is not required to pass all of user's data.

GDPR compliance is different, companies are required to pass basically a database dump by law.

How is that relevant? If anything, that actually goes to show the point being made, which is that Google had this available everywhere before GDPR even existed. Most other companies, including Apple, are only doing this because they have to in Europe, whereas Google did it arguably for better reasons.

The GDPR was wonderful. One of the websites I use had an export option but it only gave some of the data which didn't include the bit I wanted and then the GDPR came along and now I get a CSV dump of every table for my user.

Google Takeout has been available for years: https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout?pli=1

For google, if you don't like the format of Google Takeout (a huge dump of files without UI to browse it), you can also check out a live stream of all data they are collecting:

https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity

Or for specific products, you can figure out the demographic inferred for you on ads, or gps tracking for maps:

https://www.google.com/settings/ads

https://www.google.com/maps/timeline

Yes, not just US and EU - for everyone.

Yes (at least for Google and Facebook)? I think the types of content differ between regions (EU includes some legally mandated data in addition to the standard set) but user created content is definitely available for download in all regions.

i downloaded my (US) fb data when i deleted i 2014; it didnt have my social graph or anything but had all the content i posted

Tinfoil hat: as others have already noted, Google and FB have had this feature for awhile (e.g., Google Takeout) but the media likes to hype up Apple vs. GoogFace as GoogFace are direct competitors of traditional media and have been responsible for their decline.

It's not even a media thing. It's fact that Apple has always been more privacy-conscious than Google or Facebook. They didn't create the Secure Enclave for kicks, and they stand more to gain (financially) from inspecting your unencrypted data than your Enclave-encrypted data.

Isn't this being done for GDPR compliance? I think they are just making it available for all instead of trying to regionalize it.

Although I'm European I'd like to say that having only the way to download all harvested data and ability to correct the basic information provided like name, last name etc. is not enough. There should be also a way to request data purge on their servers - the descriptions of categories I saw when log in there aren't something I wish they would store and process - no matter how blurred or meaningless they are. That's still data about me and I believe I should have the control over it. Moreover, the purge request should be the industry standard (and that's what was missing in my opinion in GDPR) - even if it would take time to process the request, I would like to have such ability.

The site introduced under www.apple.com/privacy/ address is from my PoV, of power user not something that I'm not aware - maybe it will be helpful to the masses but I don't find such "tips" useful at all. Overall tone of this page is no different than any other similar and says "trust us, we won't do bad things". Which sided with leaks, privacy breaches we had doesn't give me the positive vibes - despite of Apple approach to the privacy.

I think it's more so baffling this is only happening now (likely due to GDPR) considering how other big players have been doing this for quite some time.

What I mean is it's innovation.

The issue is that they ALSO still have your data, yes you have it now (hey, thanks for my own data) but they and god knows who else at this point have it and they really can do literally anything with it without your knowledge.

What we really need is a TRUE DELETE FOREVER YOUR DATA with 0% chance of recovery by anyone. People want to be able to log into google, microsoft, apple etc. download and then delete accounts completely if they fee like it. My data, i own it, i should be able to take it out of the system forever.

THAT we will never get. Why? Because customers personal data is gold and no one wants or will throw that away.

I agree that Apple is a support of privacy. But this by itself I don’t think indicates anything. Especially since Google and Facebook already have the same thing and they are definitely not supporters of privacy.

Then they wouldn't degrade user security to the single point of failure - PIN code, in recent iOS versions.

Usability and security are usually at opposite ends of the spectrum - and keep in mind that even a pin code + face/touch ID is infinitely better than the zero security most people had prior.

I was talking about better security that was present in iOS10 and then degraded by Apple in iOS11. See the link - https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2017/11/ios-11-horror-story-the-r...

> PIN code

Then write down your PIN code somewhere else, now you don't have a "single point of failure".

How is writing down PIN related to security? It is still a single point of failure, attacker knowing PIN can gain access to everything in your account - iCloud, password backups etc. And in iOS10 security was better, so Apple consciously decided to degrade it in iOS11. See source - https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2017/11/ios-11-horror-story-the-r...

> This makes me think even more that Apple is really a supporter of privacy and a good actor.

That's the point... this is a publicity stunt. Corporations don't have feelings, and the board that drives the company is primarily concerned with company health and growth above all other things. Leadership may, however, set a strategy that capitalizes on recent public scrutiny of user privacy concerns to push the narrative that will sell more iDevices. Humanizing corporations is a dangerous game, because it plays right into their hand. Don't let them fool you into it.

I believe that this is a very simplistic view. Of course corporations can’t have any feelings, but corporations are still led by human beings who can have truthful views and steer a company such that they do some good. I believe Tim Cook and most of his top managers have good intentions. At least they have been very consistent on some topics like privacy, minority rights and the environment. Is Apple perfect? Of course not. But I have not the feeling they need to do these things just for publicity reasons

Corporations will do "good" things when it aligns with their product goals. You can be sure that if Tim Cook or anyone at a publicly traded company started steering a company away from profitability they would be replaced. The company will always be susceptible to market forces, and the needs of its shareholders and employees before users or the world, unless regulation steps in or public opinion would hurt their profitability.

While you make a fair point, the commenter is suggesting that Tim Cook is well-intentioned, and the comment that a company like Apple is suspectible to market forces is not an indication that Cook is not well-intentioned.

(Not that intentions matter particularly either way.)

At the same time:

We don't need to humanize companies.

If they behave nicely because it is profitable that's a win-win in my book.

In fact that is even better than said company being nice because the current CEO is nice :-)

Avoiding humanizing faceless corporations doesn't preclude holding companies accountable. We've known since the industrial revolution that companies left to market forces alone will turn society into a hell on earth in the search for greater profitability. That's why the government tries to step in with regulation to stop companies from abusing your data, making you work seven days a week, or pump garbage into the ocean. CEOs are also not kings. In a publicly traded company they are replaceable the moment they stop doing their job (to drive profit and growth for the board). Companies do not care about you beyond your dollars. It is a rare exception to find a company that isn't unequally distributing their wealthy even among their own employees, or has found success in the manipulation and floundering of rivals and government agencies.

I mean...corporations consist of people (i.e., employees) with feelings and values which - at least to some extent - govern their collective choices and actions. Granted it's tough / probably impossible to disentangle this from profit motive.

A company is not a collective. Most of the employees will receive an unequally small portion of the total profit compared to the upper echelon, and have very little say in the overall direction. In fact, a public company is run by its board, who are free to remove leaders who do not grow the company or lead it the way they like.

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