In general, the Cupertino giant Apple has always believed that parents should have tools to manage their children’s device usage. Having said that, the company recently removed several parental control apps from the App Store. According to the company, these apps put users’ privacy and security at risk. To be more specific, several of these parental control apps were using a highly invasive technology called Mobile Device Management, or MDM. MDM gives a third party control and access over a device and its most sensitive information including user location, app use, email accounts, camera permissions, and browsing history. On the other hand, MDM does have legitimate uses, explains Apple. Businesses will sometimes install MDM on enterprise devices to keep better control over proprietary data and hardware. Beyond the control that the app itself can exert over the user's device, research has shown that MDM profiles could be used by hackers to gain access for malicious purposes. The company communicated these violations to the app developers, giving them 30 days to submit an updated app to avoid availability interruption in the App Store. Several developers released updates to bring their apps in line with these policies. Source
Monday, 29 April 2019
Apple removes third-party parental control apps due to privacy and security reasons
In general, the Cupertino giant Apple has always believed that parents should have tools to manage their children’s device usage. Having said that, the company recently removed several parental control apps from the App Store. According to the company, these apps put users’ privacy and security at risk. To be more specific, several of these parental control apps were using a highly invasive technology called Mobile Device Management, or MDM. MDM gives a third party control and access over a device and its most sensitive information including user location, app use, email accounts, camera permissions, and browsing history. On the other hand, MDM does have legitimate uses, explains Apple. Businesses will sometimes install MDM on enterprise devices to keep better control over proprietary data and hardware. Beyond the control that the app itself can exert over the user's device, research has shown that MDM profiles could be used by hackers to gain access for malicious purposes. The company communicated these violations to the app developers, giving them 30 days to submit an updated app to avoid availability interruption in the App Store. Several developers released updates to bring their apps in line with these policies. Source
