The app tracking feature was slated to be released earlier this year.
Failing to comply with Apple’s privacy policy, the apps will be taken down from the App store.
Craig Federighi made the announcement at the GDPR conference.
Apple will start rolling out the App Tracking Transparency feature to all the apps on the App store early next year. Failure to comply will lead to, the developers having their applications taken down from the App Store for violating Apple’s privacy policy.
The Apple App Tracking Transparency feature was set to debut earlier this year but was delayed in the wake of developers transitioning to update their apps to the new policy and address privacy issues. A few companies to name such as Facebook and Google have stood against this decision as they propagate in saying that following this practise would hurt small developers disproportionately.
Craig Federighi said that users should know when they are being tracked across different places on the web and applications.
"Early next year, we'll begin requiring all apps that want to do that to obtain their users' explicit permission, and developers who fail to meet that standard can have their apps taken down from the App Store," he said at the European Data Protection and Privacy Conference. The new feature would introduce a pop-up notification reading the message "would like permission to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies."
"When invasive tracking is your business model, you tend not to welcome transparency and customer choice," Federighi said, rejecting criticism of the new feature. "We need the world to see those arguments for what they are: a brazen attempt to maintain the privacy-invasive status quo."
Last month Max Schrems led a campaign in Australia against Apple and went on to file complaints to the data protection watchdogs in Germany and Spain alleging that an online tracking tool was used in its devices breaching the European Law. Apple had then rebutted the claim calling it factually inaccurate.
Federighi went on to say that “Getting this right will take time, collaboration, listening — and true partnership across the entire technology ecosystem. But we believe the result will be transformative."
In other Apple news, the company launched the AirPods Max with spatial audio and dynamic head tracking priced at Rs. 59,990. You can read more about that here.
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