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How to Discover What Apple Knows About You

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Apple also collects some data about its users. Photo: picture alliance / NurPhoto | Jaap Arriens
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March 10, 2023, 12:54 pm | Read time: 2 minutes

What does a company know about me? Apple makes this data accessible to customers. Through an online service, various data can be compiled and downloaded. TECHBOOK reveals how to access this information.

On May 25, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect. Since then, European users have had more control over the data they have provided to companies. In this context, many companies have adjusted their terms of service–including Apple. Since then, the manufacturer has offered a service aimed at providing more transparency.

Users can request a detailed report of all their stored data free of charge. This includes all data sets, such as App Store, Apple Music, emails, contacts, photos, and more. TECHBOOK guides you step by step on how to do this.

How to Retrieve Apple Data

Log in with your Apple ID at https://privacy.apple.com.

Credit: TECHBOOK

The selection menu will now open. There, you will find not only the mentioned option but also others that allow you to adjust, restrict, or completely delete your account if desired. Through this menu, you can also specify which apps have access to the camera and microphone.

Credit: TECHBOOK

If you select “Request copies of your data,” you can specify which data sets you want to request. The site will then ask how much storage space the summary should be compressed to. This option is particularly helpful if you have limited storage space on your hard drive or if your internet connection is too slow for downloading a 25-gigabyte data package.

Credit: TECHBOOK

Once the request is completed, Apple takes up to seven days to prepare the data. When the summary is ready, you will be notified by email.

What Does the GDPR Mean for Me?

On May 25, 2018, the new data protection rules came into effect in all 28 EU countries after years of lobbying battles. Essentially, the regulation of personal data processing by companies or associations is addressed. This includes names, addresses, email addresses, ID numbers, or IP addresses. What exactly is behind this and what changes arise are explained in this article: Simply Explained: What Does the New GDPR Mean?

This article is a machine translation of the original German version of TECHBOOK and has been reviewed for accuracy and quality by a native speaker. For feedback, please contact us at info@techbook.de.

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