European laws pave way for Meta to access your Wi-Fi history
Apple has accused EU regulators of forcing it to hand over sensitive user data to Meta, including Wi-Fi logs that could reveal visits to hospitals and fertility clinics.
Facebook owner Meta is demanding unprecedented access to Apple users’ daily Wi-Fi history, leveraging new European Union laws that Apple warns are causing disastrous “unintended consequences.”
Apple has accused “bureaucrats in Brussels” of “seizing” its intellectual property and “redesigning” its products under the controversial Digital Markets Act (DMA).
These “unintended consequences” include requests for Wi-Fi logs, which Apple warns could allow Meta and other companies to effectively track users, revealing visits to sensitive locations like courthouses, hotels, or fertility clinics.
Apple has also been asked to hand over the complete contents of all device notifications, including messages, emails, and even medical alerts.
This escalating dispute is set to ripple far beyond the EU, potentially transforming how Australians use their Apple devices, as governments and regulatory bodies, including the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, re-examine their own tech regulations.
Under the DMA, the European Commission says “gatekeepers”, such as Apple, must provide developers with free and effective interoperability with hardware and software features controlled by or accessed via its operating systems.
But Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, decried its “radical interpretation” as a government overreach that threatens to dismantle Apple’s signature “just works” experience, expose user privacy to unprecedented risks and choke off innovation.
He said the EU’s DMA forces product redesigns “to the benefit of a few wealthy companies” and have already yielded “very unintended consequences” for millions of users and developers as Apple has halted the release of some new products in Europe rather than surrender user’s personal information.
“This type of data … is so sensitive we don’t have access to it,” Mr Joswiak told this masthead.
“We don’t see it. We don’t get it. But under these rules, we’d be forced to hand it over to other companies, no matter who they are or how they plan to use it, in the name of interoperability.
“So what can you do with that information? Well, if I know all the Wi-Fi networks that you’ve been, I know which hospitals you’ve visited, I know what courthouses you’ve gone to, what hotels, fertility clinics. This is not about protecting users.”
ACCC pushes for reforms
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is also pushing for reforms to open up Apple’s iOS ecosystem to allow consumers to use competing app stores, third-party payments and other services, branding Apple a “walled garden”.
Apple argued in a submission to Treasury earlier this year that the ACCC’s push would expose user privacy.
“Seamless integration not only allows Apple to provide a unique user experience that delivers on the promise to make its products work right out of the box — it also promotes user trust. Apple’s integrated ecosystem provides the safest, most secure, most trusted, most private, and highest quality suite of products,” Apple said in its submission.
“Millions of Australians have chosen Apple’s products because they value a streamlined user experience that prioritises privacy protection and digital security. Any new regulatory framework should not deny consumers the choice of a differentiated, integrated, private, and secure product offering.”
Privacy risk
At the weekend, the European Commission rejected Apple’s request for an interoperability waiver requests covering iOS Notifications, Proximity Pairing, File Transfer Measures, Automatic Wifi Connection and Automatic audio switching.
Apple has received more than 100 requests for information following the DMA’s implementation. Almost half of these requests have come from Meta – which has been accused of preying on insecure teens – Google, Microsoft and Garmin.
“The European Commission’s actions continue to undermine the privacy and security of users in Europe, threaten the highly integrated experience our users love, and require Apple to give our intellectual property to our competitors for free,” an Apple spokeswoman said.
“European regulators are demanding that we hand over highly personal information—for example, forcing us to give third parties access to the complete list of Wi-Fi networks each user has ever joined, along with decrypting the sensitive contents of their notifications. At every turn, the Commission has rejected our substantial concerns about mandates that are bad for users privacy and security in order to give a few large competitors unfettered access to Apple’s innovations and our users personal information.”
Mr Joswiak said “there’s more sensitive information on our phones than we have in our homes” and the EU’s laws were “trying to force us to make … all that private information available to anybody who wants it”.
“And ironic to this whole thing is Europe has long claimed to be the most privacy minded place in the world and a claim to have a commitment to privacy, yet this is the biggest threat we’ve seen the user privacy from we’ve ever seen from any government on the planet. And there are a lot of governments you might think worse of.”
Mr Joswiak said Apple has also been asked to provide the complete contents of all the notifications that come to an Apple device. This includes contents of messages, emails, even medical alerts.
“(It) doesn’t matter. If it’s a notification, they want us to expose it,” he said, adding that Apple’s foundational privacy principle is to keep sensitive user data on the device, not on its servers
“Interoperability requires (us) to share that beyond the device. We do so much on-device because we don’t even want access to this information. That’s critical and important here.
“It’s not like we have taken this and we have it on our Apple servers and we’re just choosing not to share it. We don’t want it, right? If we don’t have it, hackers can’t get it, rogue employees can’t get it, governments can’t get it. We don’t want it. We want it to live on your device. The heart of the issue here, is that they want to require us to provide this data, to open these features up to others.”
Services halted
The fallout, according to Apple, is already being felt by European consumers. Cutting-edge features like iPhone Mirroring and Live Translation, rolled out globally, remain absent in the EU due to these regulatory hurdles.
Live Translation has been halted because Apple says it cannot release an API that allows apps access to multiple microphones without undertaking the necessary engineering work to protect users’ for privacy and security.
Even personalised Maps capabilities are being withheld from the European market. Apple insists these are not strategic decisions but forced concessions.
“It’s not in our interest to deny features or to deny them or delay them to our customers in Europe,” Mr Joswiak said, emphasising the engineering impossibility of integrating its advanced technologies with a “lowest common denominator” of competitor devices without compromising the user experience.
Mr Joswiak said the EU’s laws pose a grave threat to its intellectual property and future capacity for innovation. He highlighted the “magical” initial experience of connecting AirPods – a product of years of integrated development – as a prime example of a feature that, under current EU rules, could not have been launched. “That wouldn’t encourage innovation, right? It discourages it. It’s a disincentive,” he said.
IP ‘seized’
Adding to Apple’s indignation is the perceived asymmetry of the regulations. “Those rules only apply to Apple,” Mr Joswiak said, highlighting that rivals like Samsung, Chinese firms, and other American tech giants appear to be exempt.
“Only Apple is being required to basically have our IP seized. And have our products redesigned by bureaucrats in Brussels. It is beyond comprehension.“
Apple is now imploring other nations considering similar regulatory paths to “pay close attention to what’s going on in Europe.” Joswiak warned that while such regulations might seem appealing “at 50,000 feet,” their true, detrimental implications for user experience, innovation, and privacy often remain obscured until “far too late.”
The clash between Apple’s iconic “just works” and privacy ethos and the EU’s ambitious drive for interoperability is poised to redraw the contours of the digital future for countless users worldwide.
“Frankly, it comes down to the fact that governments are now in the business of trying to redesign our products, which is really to the benefit of a few wealthy companies, and I’ sure that’s the last thing you want to talk about, but it’s too important of a topic not to. It’s important to us, it’s important for our users,” Mr Joswiak said.
“Obviously Europe has been involved in this DMA regulation for a number of years and as you know we’re now seeing governments outside of Europe considering similar rules. Especially, and we’re going to talk about today, the rules around interoperability.“
‘Worse experience’
Despite the concerns, Mr Joswiak said that interoperability was not a new concept for Apple.
He listed examples of areas where Apple has enabled interoperability, including ”the camera to the microphone to our contacts database, photo libraries, location services, and so on.“
“We have literally hundreds of thousands of APIs available to our developers so they can develop incredible software and hardware products for, as I said, it was a very vast ecosystem.
“Unfortunately, there are bureaucrats in Brussels that have second-guessed our decisions. They’re making judgments. About access with a lack of a fundamental understanding of how software is built and failing to comprehend the risks to users.
“Quite honestly, they’ve introduced a framework that goes way too far in creating a worse experience for our users. They’ve undermined our innovation.“
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