Google's iOS Apps Go Unupdated for Weeks as Apple's Privacy Labels Take Effect

Open the App Store on an iPhone, find one of Google's major apps, and scroll to the App Privacy section. Where Apple now expects a plain-language account of what data an app collects and tracks, the entry for several Google apps reads only: No Details Provided.

The gap traces back to December 8, when Apple began requiring all app developers to disclose what user information their apps track and collect on Apple devices. The disclosures take the form of privacy labels displayed on each app's store page.

According to a report by Fast Company, which Deccan Herald cites, Google's popular iOS apps have been conspicuously still since that date. Gmail, Google Maps, Google Assistant, Google Photos, Google Keep, Drive and Sheets, among others, have not been updated. The last update any of them received was on December 7, the day before Apple's requirement took effect. Most have now gone close to a month without a new version. The same apps on Android, by contrast, received updates throughout December.

Why that matters is the suspicion forming around it. Many cyber experts, the article says, believe Google has temporarily stopped updating its iOS apps to avoid having to submit privacy label data. The labels are tied to app submissions, so a developer that does not push an update does not have to fill one in. The article also notes that Chrome and other Google apps have not yet completed their privacy label forms on the App Store.

The author of the piece, a technology writer, expects a reaction once the labels do appear. When Google eventually puts labels on its 15 popular apps, he writes, people will be surprised by how much the Mountain View company has been tracking and collecting, not only inside its own apps but also by scanning other third-party apps installed on an iPhone. He frames Google as a company known for tracking user information on mobile phones to serve targeted ads, which earn it billions of dollars in revenue.

He describes the broader pattern as familiar. Most people, himself included, grant apps access to contacts, SMS, photos and other data when installing them without much thought. Apps can then track information including location and use it to place ads that nudge users toward purchases. He calls this standard practice among popular apps such as Facebook, Amazon and Google, and says it amounts to a breach of privacy, though he adds that it does not shock him given his years in the field.

The labels, he writes, are only the beginning. Apple has said stricter policies are coming in the following months. It has already told registered app companies that it intends to bring App Tracking Transparency to its devices through a software update, a feature that will let users block apps from tracking their private details.

What to watch is simple: whether Google's iOS apps start receiving updates again, and what their labels say when they do. Google's own explanation for the pause is not given in the article; the link to the privacy labels rests on the timing and on the judgment of outside experts.