Last week at their annual developer conference, Apple presented a new way to sign into third-party sites and services. The new “Sign in with Apple” button will prevent third-party companies from obtaining your personal information.
So far, many companies give their users the options to sign in with one-click, using Login with Google, Facebook, or Twitter. However, at WWDC 2019, Apple’s software engineering chief Craig Federighi explained their concerns:
“Now this can be convenient, but it also can come at the cost of your privacy — your personal information sometimes gets shared behind the scenes and these logins can be used to track you,”
– Craig Federighi, VP of Software Engineering
So, he then went on to explain that Apple wants to protect its users’ data, by implementing a better solution. This solution allows developers to add a “Sign in with Apple” button, instead of Google, Twitter or Facebook.
How does that make a difference?
Apple explained that this service uses biometric data like fingerprint and Face ID to authenticate a user. In simple terms, with the new one-click sign up option, Apple users will be able to create a new account on an app without disclosing any new personal information. That is possible, because the Apple sign-in will automatically generate random email addresses protecting your personal address and hence your data.
At the moment, when users sign up in a new app they share information from Facebook, Google and others. However, after releasing the new Apple sign-in feature, users will no longer need to provide their email addresses. Hence, their information is kept safely in Apple’s servers. Of course, they will still be able to provide their personal data, but only if they want to.
It is a brilliant idea for everybody who wants to protect their privacy. That is possible with the random email addresses which users get every time they sign up with Apple. Importantly, these emails can be disabled the moment they start to bother the customer.
Luckily, we are experiencing more transparency when it comes to tech giants handling our personal data. With Apple thriving for better protection of the users’ privacy, Facebook launching their own cryptocurrency, and Google making it easier to delete your personal information. It seems like we are little further away from George Orwell’s dystopian world.
