
Apple Is Secretly Giving People 'Trust Scores' Based on Their Iphone Data - craigferg501
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/apple-trust-score-iphone-data-black-mirror-email-phone-fraud-a8546051.html
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prepend
This is not like the Black Mirror episode, Nosedive (or a similar episode of
the Orville), because people aren’t rating others and scores aren’t known at
all. The behavior changes from constantly rating and being rated by lots of
subjective raters is what scared me in the episode.

This is similar to other risk or trust algorithm used by banks, healthcare,
ctrfit agencies, email services, etc.

It could be bad depending on what Apple does with it, obviously, but this
seems like a way integrate more device data into their fraud detection
methods.

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fghtr
Yes, the comparison with the episode looks unreasonable. Still, it sounds that
Apple processes personal data without any possibility to opt-out.

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millstone
There's an obvious problem with enabling people to opt-out of fraud detection.
But I suppose Apple could offer other ways to confirm your identity, e.g. 2FA.

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getpost
Phone calls and email? So only senior citizens will be trusted? What about
texts? Are calls and apps measured using only Apple apps? What if I used 3rd
party apps for these functions?

I get very few phone calls, and half of them are spam calls that I don't
answer (only answer calls from known numbers). I don't use Apple Mail. So I'm
untrustworthy because my social configuration isn't typical?

My ipad isn't used for calls, messaging or email. Does that mean I can't use
my ipad for purchases?

Have to have ID and credit history disclosed to get a phone in the first
place. Isn't that enough? Is this only for non-phone devices?

This needs more in-depth reporting. What kind of fraud exactly?

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Ftuuky
How can we opt-out of having Apple or Google from accessing personal data?

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4ad
By not buying and not using their services.

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Ftuuky
How can I not use either Android or iOS? I'm not well versed in data
protection policies, but at least in the EU where I live, shouldn't this fall
under GDPR? I should be able to opt out of having my personal data to be used
by a algorithm to determine my "trust score", whatever that means.

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millstone
Well I have bad news: every purchase from every merchant is assigned a trust
score. Obviously online merchants have fraud detection.

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sunstone
It's nice to see that western tech companies are way ahead of China again.

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raarts
I don't know if the Chinese would think your joke is funny..

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terrywilcox
I'm confused by the headline.

The quote from Apple is that they're computing trust scores for your devices
for when you attempt a purchase. It sounds like the more you use the device,
the more trusted it is. That brand new device that you've never used before
shouldn't be trusted.

What I don't understand is how you can reasonably stretch that out to giving
people trust scores.

Click bait?

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fghtr
>>It sounds like the more you use the device, the more trusted it is.

Where did you see it? It says nothing about how the score is calculated.

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terrywilcox
"To help identify and prevent fraud, information about how you use your
device, including the approximate number of phone calls or emails you send and
receive, will be used to compute a device trust score when you attempt a
purchase," the page reads.

See the "information about how you use your device, including the approximate
number of phone calls or emails you send and receive".

So the score calculation for that device includes the approximate number of
phone calls or emails you send and receive on it.

You could interpret that as "the more personal activity you have on a device,
the less trusted it should be", but that makes no sense. The more you use a
device, the more likely it is to actually be your device.

It makes sense to place less trust in devices that you rarely use.

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RileyJames
How many phone calls / email does one send to be deemed trustworthy?

And on top of that, considering I make ‘phone calls’ via signal, FaceTime
(audio) and other apps, on top of the standard dialer, and for email use Zoho,
inbox, gmail and the standard client, how does it even come up with these
numbers?

I have to assume they’re looking for extremely high usage, robo dialers or
spam outfits using iPhones. But is there any evidence this is happening?

It also sounds like it’s somehow connected to Apple Pay, but why would someone
using their device for spam purposes have or setup Apple Pay? Surely if you’re
using your device to robo dial / spam, it’s one of many devices sitting in a
rack / pseudo data centre. Not a personal device.

This all sounds very very strange.

