r/ios•
es94hup

iOS privacy (coming from Android) (x/post from /r/privacy)

Hi,

I posted the question below to r/privacy but I don't think many iOS developers hang around and I was hoping someone here might have some insights.

Thank you.

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Although I had the original iPhone (with iPhoneOS 1.0.2) and then the 3GS I've since been a nexus user due to the low-level hacking I've been keen of. Since a while back I also gave up gapps and have been using a combination of Cyanogenmod/LineageOS + microg + xprivacy(lua) and I've been wary of installing non open source apps (although I had to make quite a few exceptions). After a while I had enough and wanted to return to the iPhone.

Although I know reasonably well the Android internals I'm not up to date with iOS and had a few questions regarding general privacy.

Currently I have 'limit ad tracking' and background data refresh off.

My main concern isn't apple but 3rd party apps that might be rogue or not (eg: collect tracking/personal information without consent).

Can an installed app do the following:

receive intents (display on, display off, new app installed etc)
get a list of other installed apps
get call log / receive intent on incoming calls or text messages
get battery level
get sensors / sensor status (accelerometer, proximity etc)
read icloud account name / email / country or other details
read identifiers (imei, sim serial number, gsm operator name/id, voicemail number advertising id, serial numer?)
wi-fi data (ssid, bssid, gsm cell info) - accuweather comes in mind for location tracking via the BSSID.

Futher to that, can an app that's not active (and not in the recent list) wake up (with background data refresh off) in any way? For example, receive a silent notification that's not displayed and then the app wake up and collect various data?

These questions normally apply to apps that obey the appstore rules (a notable example was the uber app which was collecting imei details in breach of the appstore rules or record the screen etc).

Thank you.

Posted Mar 12, 2018, 9:34 PM UTC

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