Apple’s transparency reports aren’t very transparent, group says

The campaign team has criticized Apple’s biannual transparency reports, stating that in one very important respect they are not very transparent.

One section of the report concerns takedown requests from the App Store, and Apple has been accused of intentionally withholding information about the apps it removes…

Background

Apple publishes transparency reports twice a year. They detail actions taken in response to requests for public and private data, and apps that have been removed from the App Store in response to takedown requests.

Apple provides information about government requests to remove apps from the App Store based on alleged/alleged violations of local laws. Examples of such requests are when law enforcement or regulatory authorities suspect that an application may be illegal or associated with or contain illegal content. Apple will comply with these requests to the extent required by law.

The latest report showed that the majority of app takedown requests came from China, and that Apple removed each of the apps in question.

Apple says it has received 39 requests to remove 206 apps due to violations of the law. China accounted for 26 of these requests, covering 90 applications, followed by India with six requests, covering 102 applications. Apple has removed all 206 requested apps.

Apple transparency reports aren’t really transparent, campaign group says

The accusation is being made by the campaign group GreatFire, whose mission is to “monitor and combat Internet censorship in China.” The group has published its own report titled “Deconstructed: A Look at Apple’s Transparency Reports”.

Apple has carefully crafted its transparency reporting to hide as much information about app removals from the 175 app stores it operates around the world as possible.

After analyzing four transparency reports covering “App removal requests from public stores worldwide” from January 2019 to December 2020, AppleCensorship found many missing data, inconsistencies and conflicting information presented in the most deceptive way, making it impossible for the public to clearly understanding. about the government-led proactive removal of Apple apps from its app stores. By presenting such reports as its efforts to provide transparency to the public, Apple misleads its users and the public about the reality of its content takedown policy, both in terms of its nature and true scope.

The AppleCensorship report demonstrates that despite the publication of these so-called “transparency” reports; Apple continues to act in the most non-transparent manner, taking no responsibility for the decisions it makes regarding certain content, information, and tools not available on the App Store.

The group says that while Apple provides statistics, it does not provide any information that would be required to assess the validity of app removals.

There is no information about the applications being removed, their category, type of content and features they offer, as well as the app stores in which they were present before the removal. There is no information about the government agencies issuing takedown requests, the dates of the requests, their legal basis, and the reasons why these authorities refer to the removal of apps. Apple has repeatedly used only 10 vague and succinct reasons to describe reasons for deleting apps: “apps running without a government license”, “illegal gambling” and “illegal content” account for 32 of the 41 brief explanations provided by Apple. .

GreatFire says this makes it impossible to know who has been targeted or harmed by the removal.

Since no information is provided about applications being removed, it is not possible to know whether specific user groups (such as human rights activists, journalists, ethnic minorities, or vulnerable communities such as LGBTQ+) were the target of such removal.

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In addition, it states that governments often submit takedown requests reporting apps as violating App Store policy, eliminating the need for them to invoke a legal basis for their removal.

Platform Policy Remove Requests (PPVTR) cause many more removals than Legal Violation Remove Requests (LVTR).

In two years, 869 apps removed after LVTR resulted in 948 removals worldwide, and 191 apps removed due to PPVTR resulted in 29,605 applications being removed worldwide. In other words, 96.90% of all deletions were made in accordance with Apple’s own decisions. Only 3.10% of all deletions were due to Apple’s legal obligation to comply with local laws.

The group says Apple needs to provide much more information, including a list of the removed apps and the laws the apps are believed to have violated.

We have reached out to Apple for comment and will report any response.

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