Comment by housemusicfan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by housemusicfan | Hacker News Reader

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This isn't far from the truth. Have you seen the list of App Store data collection permissions it requests? For what amounts in functionality to little more than a terminal session to a BBS? Holy shit. I verified it's longer than TikTok's which is widely assumed to be a hostile state-backed surveillance tool at this point.

For Threads, the following may be "collected and linked to your identity":

Health & Fitness

Purchases

Financial info

Location

Contact info

Contacts

User content

Search history

Browsing history

Identifiers

Usage data

Sensitive Info - whatever the hell that is [1]

Diagnostics

And my favorite, "other data" I.e. it collects so much we don't even have a category for it

[1] Apple's definition includes: racial/ethnic data, sexual orientation, pregnancy or childbirth information, disability, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, political opinion, genetic information, or biometric data

I'm sure there's a valid reason for all this...

Those aren't permissions it requests, it has no permissions by default. Instead it's the broadest interpretation of data it could gather from any of its features and dependencies (an app granting a permission grants it to all frameworks as well). But they will have to ask about all of them, especially health data. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a broad, general list they imported from other Meta apps in the rush to ship.

The health one is what raised eyebrows for me. That wasn't included by accident.

I'd be surprised if it actually requested it. At the same time, it could just be an overly broad interpretation of the fact that they obviously gather any health data you post about on the service.

Not sure how I feel about extending the benefit of the doubt to one of, if not the number one, least trustworthy companies on the planet.

Not really the benefit of the doubt given the app is out and no one has posted about it asking for health permission (AFAIK). Or any other permissions you wouldn't expect for social media (again, AFAIK).

It's not even anything about features or frameworks or dependencies.

It's literally just checkboxes inside App Store Connect when you submit the app.

Basically it's what Meta's lawyers think needs to be disclosed.

I'm sure they do sentiment analysis on your IG posts, put you in advertising targeting cohorts like "cancer survivor", and that's what they mean by "health data". Not that it's getting anything from the iOS Health app.

Apple guidelines, especially around user-submitted content, have some leeway in interpretation if they are "optional to disclose" or not. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/app-privacy-details/#o...

If I'm posting all day on Threads about my health, that doesn't sound like "Collection of the data occurs only in infrequent cases that are not part of your app’s primary functionality", and hence they need to declare literally anything a user might be posting about.

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