Tim Cook questioned about Apple’s 2019 ban on parental control apps using mobile device management

Apple in early 2019 removed or restricted many popular screen time and parental control apps from the App Store due to its use of Mobile Device Management, or MDM, which the company says put the user’s security and privacy at risk.

During today’s antitrust hearing with the United States House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, Cook was questioned about Apple’s decision to remove parental control apps, which came after the launch of Apple’s Screen Time feature. .

Cook said what Apple has said several times before, that applications that used Mobile Device Management to allow parents to limit children’s access to their devices put data at risk. “We were concerned about the safety of the children,” said Cook.

Cook’s statement was similar to what Apple said when the apps were removed: “These apps were using an enterprise technology that provided them with access to children’s highly sensitive personal data. We don’t think it’s okay for any app to help kids. data companies to track or optimize children’s advertising. “

The congresswoman who questioned Cook asked about a specific Saudi Arabian government application that also used MDM, but Cook said she was unfamiliar with the application and would have to provide more data at a later date. When asked if Apple applies different rules to different app developers, Cook once again said that the rules apply to all developers alike.

Cook was asked about the timing of the parental control apps removal, given that Screen Time had launched not long before, a question Cook largely avoided. He was asked why Phil Schiller had referred customers complaining about the removal of the parental control apps to Screen Time, but Cook referred to the more than 30 parental control apps on the ‌App Store‌ and said there is “competition vibrant “in the parental control space in the app store.

When asked if Apple has the power to exclude apps from the ‌App Store‌ or remove apps from the competition, Cook went back to what he said during his opening statement, that there is a “wide door” for the ppApp Store‌, referring to the fact. that there are over 1.7 million applications available. “It is an economic miracle,” Cook said. “We want to get as many apps as we can in the ‌App Store‌.”

Along with questions about parental control apps, Cook was asked why, in 2010, Apple used the ppApp Store presion to pressure publisher Random House to participate in the iBookstore, which Random House had declined to do. In a cited document, Apple iTunes chief Eddy Cue at the time sent an email to Steve Jobs saying that “it prevented a Random House app from launching in the” App Store “because Apple had the goal of getting Random House to accept a blanket agreement. In response, Cook said there are “many reasons” why an application might not go through the approval process. “It may not work properly,” he said.

One of the documents shared by the subcommittee.
Apple’s 2019 decision to limit parental control apps led developers of those apps to request a public API that would allow them to access the same features that are available in Screen Time after MDM options were restricted, which Apple declined to provide.

Mobile device management, used by apps, is a feature specifically designed for business users to manage company-owned devices. Apple’s position is that the use of MDM by consumer-focused apps has privacy and security concerns that have been referenced in the App Store guidelines since 2017.

Instead of providing an API, Apple finally decided to allow developers of parental control applications to use Mobile Device Management for their applications, with stricter privacy controls that prevent them from selling, using or disclosing data to third parties. Applications should also submit an MDM capacity request that evaluates how an application will use MDM to prevent abuse and ensure that no data is shared. MDM requests are re-evaluated every year.