Apple targeted by EU privacy activist who took on Facebook

Bloomberg

Apple Inc’s ad tracking is the target of two complaints to Spanish and German authorities by a privacy advocate whose earlier legal battles are forcing Facebook Inc to change the way it transfers data.
Noyb, a group founded by privacy activist Max Schrems, is accusing Apple of unlawfully installing so-called identification for advertisers on its devices. The service helps Apple and apps track users’ behaviour and their consumption preferences without their consent, the group said.
“With our complaints we want to enforce a simple principle: trackers are illegal, unless a user freely consents,” Noyb lawyer Stefano Rossetti said
in a statement on Monday. “Smartphones are the most intimate device for most people and they must be tracker-free by default.”
Schrems made a name for himself as a law student by taking on Facebook over the safety of people’s data when it was shipped to the US. He won a landmark European Union court ruling in 2015 and his complaints led to a second key judgment in July that has forced regulators on both sides of
Atlantic to rethink data transfer rules. The EU’s revamped data protection rules in 2018 opened the door to mass lawsuits, which led to the creation of Noyb and a promise by Schrems to “look for the bigger cases” with the biggest impact.
Rossetti said the complaints aren’t based on the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which gives regulators the power to impose hefty fines. The issues raised won’t need the involvement of the data protection authority in Ireland, where Apple has its main EU base.