The National Commission of France on Informatics and Freedom (CNIL) fined Apple for € 6 million for the fact that “the company was tracking users without their consent.”
CNIL began the investigation against Apple after a complaint of France Digitale, a lobbying group supporting the startup, which last year accused the company of violating EU laws on confidentiality.
France Digitale said that Apple’s confidentiality policy does not apply to its own applications and services. In other words, Apple monitors its users without their obvious consent and does not give them the opportunity to refuse.
In their statement, France Digitale claims that users in iOS 14 could prohibit sending their identifier used to send targeted advertising, but the default settings allowed Apple to conduct their own targeted advertising campaigns without asking the user about it.
The CNIL representative satisfied the complaint of the lobbying group and imposed an Apple fine of € 6 million ($ 6.3 million) for violation of the European Union’s directive for the protection of confidentiality in the electronic communication sector (EPRIVACY Directive, Directive 2002/58/EU)
The directive, which entered into force in 2011, says that companies cannot maintain data on the location of the user or cookies without permission. Apple violated these rules in iOS 14.6, although in iOS 15 they were already observed.
The head of the Apple Privacy Department, Gary Davis, did not agree with the decision and said that any CNIL sanctions should be “softened and should be closed.” According to him, the absence of any seriousness of the violation means that the amount of the fine must be reduced. CNIL representatives have not yet made a decision on this issue.