Anyone buying a smartphone today is also making a decision about who they entrust with their most personal data. Location data, search queries, purchasing habits, health information, private messages: all of this ends up somewhere on a server. The only question is whose server it is and what happens to it – and this is precisely where data privacy becomes a crucial factor in the purchasing decision.
For more than twelve years, Apple has been the only company seriously attempting to integrate privacy into its products as a standard feature. Not as an optional feature that needs to be activated, but as a default setting. This began with the iPhone 5s in 2013 and has been consistently implemented across the entire product range ever since.
Apple is not without its flaws. Certain business decisions, especially in recent years, can certainly be viewed critically. But when it comes to protecting user data, there is still no comparable alternative.
When data sharing was still normal
Anyone active in tech-savvy online communities in the early 2010s would have regularly encountered an attitude that didn't sound so far-fetched at the time: the more Google knew about you, the better. The idea behind it was simple. Technology can only be truly helpful if it knows its user. So, if you want your apps and services to work well, you simply have to give up your data. That seemed like a fair trade.
What wasn't considered was that this data wasn't just used to deliver better search results. It was collected, linked to other datasets, shared with third parties, and used for purposes to which the individuals concerned had never consented. Their commute to work was transformed into monetizable information. Purchasing patterns were analyzed so precisely that advertising platforms could indicate a possible pregnancy even before the person in question was aware of it.
At the same time, conspiracy theories circulated claiming that smartphones permanently left their microphones on and forwarded conversations to advertisers. The reality was indeed more invasive, but in a simpler way: Data collection was so efficient and comprehensive that eavesdropping on conversations was unnecessary. Behavioral profiles based on movement patterns, app usage, and purchase history were sufficient to draw conclusions that would have been unthinkable previously.
Apple was the first company to publicly address this development and take a stand against it. Not with a PR campaign, but with technological decisions that remain relevant to this day.
From Mac viruses to Touch ID: How Apple's privacy image came about
Apple didn't prioritize data privacy from the outset. Early marketing campaigns focused primarily on the stability and security of the hardware. The claim that Macs were immune to viruses was a well-known advertising slogan from the 2000s. It wasn't accurate then, and it still isn't today. Viruses like Scores and nVIR did infect Macs in previous decades. However, infection rates were significantly lower than those for Windows systems, and even today, they remain considerably lower for iPhones than for Android devices.
The real turning point came with the iPhone 5s, which Apple introduced in September 2013. While increased performance was the dominant theme of this product launch, two technical details laid the foundation for everything that followed: Touch ID and the so-called Secure Enclave.
Touch ID is the fingerprint sensor that was first integrated into the Home button of the iPhone 5s. The Secure Enclave is a separate chip, isolated from the rest of the system, on which biometric data is stored in encrypted form, inaccessible to Apple, apps, or external services. The fingerprint never leaves the device. It is not stored in the cloud, synced with Apple, or shared with any third party.
In its communications, Apple deliberately positioned Touch ID as a practical security tool that required no compromises. Those who had previously avoided PIN locks because they considered them cumbersome suddenly embraced biometric authentication. The underlying promise was clear: the device could know a great deal about its owner and still remain secure and compliant with data protection regulations. This approach laid the foundation for the privacy-focused image that Apple has cultivated ever since.
The San Bernardino case: Apple's involvement in court
Promises are easily made. Apple's commitment to data privacy was put to a serious test in 2016, and Apple passed.
Following the San Bernardino terrorist attack in December 2015, the FBI demanded that Apple install a backdoor in the perpetrator's iPhone to gain access to encrypted data. Apple refused and took the matter to court. The reasoning was clear: such a backdoor would not only work on that one device but would compromise the security of all iPhones worldwide. Apple argued that there was no way to create a vulnerability for just one agency without simultaneously making it accessible to all other attackers.
The FBI ultimately withdrew its request and instead turned to external service providers to unlock the iPhone in question. Reports indicate they succeeded, but only through a security vulnerability that was later patched by an Apple software update. In the following years, the FBI and other agencies continued to search for ways to access encrypted iPhones. Regular software updates from Apple have consistently thwarted these attempts.
Even though Apple's ability to fully prevail against government authorities may be more questioned today due to changed political circumstances than it was ten years ago, its fundamental technological commitment to data protection and device security has not changed.
What Apple is doing technically
Apple's privacy strategy consists of several layers that interlock.
Standard end-to-end encryption applies to iMessages and FaceTime calls. This means that only the sender and recipient can read the content. Apple itself has no access to it. Enabling the enhanced privacy feature in iCloud extends this protection to backups, photos, notes, and other categories. Even then, Apple no longer has a decryption key. If subpoenaed by authorities, Apple simply cannot release any data in these areas because none is stored in a readable format.
App Tracking Transparency, introduced with iOS 14.5 in 2021, requires apps to explicitly request permission before tracking user behavior across platforms. The impact on the digital advertising industry has been significant. Meta reported billions in revenue losses after its implementation due to the massive restrictions on personalized targeting.
iCloud Private Relay is a service that masks the user's IP address when browsing in the Safari browser. Requests are routed through two separate servers: Apple knows the user's identity but not the website being visited. The second server knows the website but not the user. No single service has complete information.
Apple Intelligence, Apple's AI system, processes sensitive requests directly on the device. More complex tasks requiring external computing power are handled via private cloud computing. The infrastructure is designed so that Apple itself has no access to the processed requests. External security researchers can examine the code running on the servers. This level of transparency is unmatched by other AI providers.
Why other companies don't take this path
There is no technical hurdle preventing other manufacturers from implementing similar data protection measures. The hurdle is economic.
Google, Meta, Microsoft, and many other technology companies generate a significant portion of their revenue by collecting, analyzing, and sharing user data. Advertising is the core business of these companies, and personalized advertising only works if user profiles are as detailed as possible. Companies that protect their users from data sharing undermine their own business model.
Apple sells hardware and increasingly also services. The company has no structural interest in monetizing user data because it is not economically dependent on it. This creates a alignment of interests between the company and its users that does not exist with other providers.
The consequences of this difference are evident in practice. Meta is constantly developing new methods to track users even when they have explicitly opted out of app tracking. Amazon subsidiary Ring wanted to integrate its connected doorbells and cameras into a coordinated surveillance network for law enforcement. Google, Meta, and Microsoft receive requests from authorities to profile users based on political activities, such as opposition to deportation authorities or criticism of the respective government. They comply with these requests because they possess the relevant data.
Apple, on the other hand, can only disclose what it actually possesses when issuing a subpoena. With enhanced privacy features enabled, this is practically nothing in most categories. And every year, Apple reduces the amount of data that could potentially be collected.
AI as a new arena in the data privacy battle
Artificial intelligence has taken the data privacy debate to a new level. Modern AI assistants are fed the most confidential information by millions of people every day: personal worries, medical questions, financial considerations, private thoughts. Many of these interactions end up on central servers and could theoretically be used to further develop the models.
From a data protection perspective, this is one of the most serious problems that information technology has produced to date. Users, consciously or unconsciously, share highly sensitive information with systems that poorly understand it and whose data practices are often opaque.
Apple Intelligence takes a structurally different approach. Simple requests are processed exclusively on the device. Only when a task exceeds local processing capacity is it escalated to private cloud computing. No requests are stored, no user profiles are created, and the code running on the servers is accessible to external auditors. Apple itself has no access to the content.
Data privacy at Apple is standard, not the exception
Android, Windows, and other platforms can be configured to be privacy-friendly. Anyone with the time and technical expertise can achieve a high level of protection on these systems. It's not impossible.
The crucial difference lies in the starting point. On other platforms, data privacy is a goal that must be actively pursued, often against default settings that point in the opposite direction. With Apple, data privacy is the default setting. Those who don't change anything are still protected.
This may sound like a small difference, but in practice it's significant. The vast majority of users don't change any system settings. They use their devices as they come from the factory. Those whose devices are optimized for data sharing do share data. Those whose devices are optimized for privacy retain control.
Apple's platforms have proven this approach in practice for over a decade, including through the face of legal and political pressure. Other providers have not yet managed to do so.
Apple has flaws, but no competition
Apple is not a flawless company. The conduct of CEO Tim Cook during Donald Trump's second term has given rise to criticism, even if there are arguments based on business necessity. Those who uncritically idealize Apple are only seeing part of the picture.
But the question isn't whether Apple is perfect. The question is which company you want to entrust with your most personal digital data. And currently, there's no comparable alternative. Apple has proven that its commitment to data privacy isn't just a marketing promise. It's built into the architecture of its products, it has survived legal battles, and it works by default without any user intervention.
In a world where surveillance is on the rise, data misuse is commonplace, and AI systems are demanding ever more intimate information, this trust is hard to earn. Apple has built it over more than a decade. No other company is in the same position today. As long as that remains the case, Apple is the only real choice for anyone who values their digital privacy. The best products for you: Our Amazon Storefront offers a wide selection of accessories, including those for HomeKit. (Image: Shutterstock / New Africa)
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