In the last few years, privacy has been on everyone’s mind more than ever. Covid showed humanity that we are far from being in control of our lives, and privacy concerns in an era of mass surveillance and user tracking take it to a deeper level. More and more people wake-up to the realization that their online activities are constantly being analyzed to create more effective forms of persuasion. Mostly for the purpose of nudging us to make a purchase that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. But it can also be used to change our minds about any topics that the advertiser wanted, from white supremacy to climate change.
It all comes down to a simple question - as digital consumers, do we have a right to not be tracked? Last week Apple released iOS 14.5 with more refinements to its existing feature called App Tracking Transparency.
How we are tracked and what’s IDFA
Have you ever noticed that sometimes after you browse some products on Amazon or other sites and then come back to Facebook, you see similar ads? This is a magic of IDFA, or the Identifier for Advertisers.
Every iPhone comes assigned with a unique IDFA, a string of characters that acts like a license plate for your phone. You can also think of an IDFA as of a cookie that ties to devices instead of browsers. Apps we install from the Appstore can access IDFA which enables them to track our interactions inside these apps. But they can also track our activities outside of their app with the IDFA and combine this information with the data collected by third party apps, or sell it to data brokers. Unlike browser cookies, an IDFA has a longer shelf life because it’s static unless we manually reset it.
The ultimate goal behind accessing our data is to build a virtual model of our purchasing behaviors so that companies can use more targeted advertising and measure its effectiveness. Watch a recent documentary Social Dilemma to learn more about this and see an excellent explanation of this virtual model.
App Tracking Transparency feature: UX path & Problems
Privacy changes were introduced to the public with the first iOS 14 announcements. At WWDC in June 2020, Apple announced that app developers have to ask users for permission in order to track and share their IDFA. In fall 2020, iOS 14 was launched, which allowed iPhone users to turn tracking off for their apps by going to Settings > Privacy > Tracking and turning off “Allow Apps to Request to Track.” App developers, on the other hand, were asked to implement a customized pop-up that gives their users the opportunity to opt out from being tracked.
When I did my first UX path on the App Tracking Transparency feature on iOS 14.2, it took a while to wrap my mind around it. I think the main point of confusion was around the UX of the Privacy setting screen and UX writing in the explainer text below the toggle.
Problem 1: Toggle text
Firstly, the text next to the toggle says, “Allow Apps to Request to Track”, and to me it causes a too much cognitive load on a user, especially if she or he is not familiar with the concept of tracking. I bet that for many iPhone users who are not in the tech world the mental model is to see a simple question - do you want to be tracked or not? The wording “allow apps to request to track” is likely to be confusing.
The truth is, Apple can’t really control if an iPhone user is tracked or not. The most they can do and already did is to require third party developers to ask for permission to track us. That’s why the text has the word “ask” in it versus just “Allow apps to track”.
Problem 2: Explainer text
There’s a lot to digest in the explainer text below the toggle. On iOS 14.2 it says, ”Allow apps to ask to track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites. Apps that don’t ask may still try to track your activity”. I think that the problem with it is that the sentence has too many indirections. Personally, I think it’d be better to say what it does from the user’s perspective, for example “prevent apps from asking to track”. The second sentence adds further confusion because as a user, I thought the point of this feature was to allow me to decide if I am tracked or not.
The deal is this: if you turn this toggle on, then every time you install a new app or update your existing apps you should see a pop-up where an app developer asks you if they can track your activity (and use your IDFA). If you turn the toggle off, it means that any app that attempts to ask for your permission will receive a big “no” to this request by being notified that you requested it to not be tracked. This does not prevent your from being tracked, but it does mean that the app maker is forced to be upfront about what they are tracking and whether or not you consent to it. This sets things up for potential legal rather than technological means to ensure our consent to be tracked is being respected.
Problem 3: Learn more link and Tracking screen
There is a Learn more link in the explainer text and it does a decent job at explaining what tracking is, how we are tracked through the IDFA, and what enabling and disabling the App Tracking Transparency feature means. However, it could be presented in a more user-friendly way by having subsections.
Problem 4: The list of apps below the toggle
It also took some research to find out what the list of the applications displayed below the “Allow Apps to Request to Track” means. It turns out, it’s a list of all apps that have asked you for your permission to track you which you either agreed to (and then the toggle for this app is on) or denied (the toggle will be off).
The problem with the current UX is that it doesn’t have a header that introduces this content.
The deal here is: You can ask all apps to stop tracking you by turning the “Allow Apps to Request to Track” off. You should stop seeing prompts from apps that want to track your activity. You can also ask all apps that you previously allowed to track to stop tracking your activities by turning the toggle for these apps off. You can also allow the apps to which you previously gave permission to continue tracking your activities.
UX improvements
I expected to see some UX improvements to the Tracking setting screen after upgrading to iOS 14.5. It looks like the only change is the second sentence of the explainer text below the toggle was removed.
As mentioned earlier, I suggest: “Prevent Apps from Asking to Track” because that is mostly likely what users came here to do. Using “prevent apps to” instead of “allow apps to” places the emphasis on what the user wants to do rather than what they will allow to happen.
The cognitive load can also be solved by revising the explainer text below the toggle. As a user, I would prefer the text to change depending on the toggle option I chose so that it always explains what my current setting is. The section with the list of apps needs a header, so is the content on the Tracking screen behind Learn more link.
So, what’s new in iOS 14.5?
The biggest change in iOS 14.5 when it comes to privacy seems to be not as much in functionality of the App Tracking Transparency feature as much as Apple’s more stringent enforcement of then existing rules. Now it doesn’t just ask app developers to implement a “tracking request” - it requires it. So, if you install and new app or upgrade an existing one, it should display a pop-up similar to this:
If the app doesn’t display it, I would expect the app would be removed from the App Store promptly.
Why should you care?
Last weekend, I was chatting with my spouse about Netflix’s The Good Girls while sitting in the car. We somehow got into a discussion about how cars come to signify something about the people driving them. For example, I noted with sorrow, the black Mercedes is almost always a bad ass. Often Russian and almost always sell drugs for money. At which point Siri piped up with “here are the places I found on the internet where you can sell drugs for money”.
It was funny, but at the same time, I wonder if I’ve just tagged myself as a person of interest for the DEA.
Whether we want to be tracked comes down to our individual preferences. Despite being frequently annoyed by the same pair of shoes that haunts me across all website pages I open, I sometimes do find personalized ad experience useful. At the same time, as a digital consumer, I believe I have the right to make my own choice and to agree to being tracked. And that’s essentially what the privacy buzz about iOS 14.5 is about - our right to choose.