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Apple reportedly cracks down on apps sharing location data with third parties

The privacy focused tech giant is removing apps from the App Store that violate its guidelines.

Katie Collins Senior European Correspondent
Katie a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET's European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET's Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a "living synth" by London's Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand.
Katie Collins
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Apple seems to be double checking that apps comply with its guidelines.

Apple

Apple is reportedly cracking down on apps that share user location data with third parties by suspending them from the App Store.

The company is informing developers if their apps violate terms within the App Store Review Guidelines, according to 9to5Mac. According to the guidelines, apps that share location data with third parties must get explicit consent from users and state the purpose for sharing the data. 

Developers can reportedly resubmit their apps to the App Store once the offending code is removed.

Apple is just one of many companies revisiting and revising its data policies right now. Due to the imminent arrival of new legislation in the EU, companies that gather and store personal data from European citizens in any form are currently reviewing their practices to make sure they are shipshape. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect on May 25 and is set to raise privacy standards across the web and give European citizens more control over their data.

Apple is known for its strong stance on privacy issues and back in March announced four new privacy management tools that would give more power to users over data and ensure it complied with the GDPR. It also made privacy a central part of its Schoolwork app, announced at its education event held in Chicago in March.

Apple did not respond to request for comment.