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This is...a very weird situation. > “Over the last year, we became aware that several of these parental control apps were using a highly invasive technology ca

This is...a very weird situation. > “Over the last year, we became aware that several of these parental control apps were using a highly invasive technology called Mobile Device Management, or MDM. > “MDM gives a third-party control and access over a device and its most sensitive information, including user location, app use, email accounts, camera permissions, and browsing history.” They make this sound like MDM is some scary third-party attack on their platform, neglecting to point out MDM is a system they designed. There's always been some schizophrenia from Apple around MDM (publicize new control features to admins in one release, add a big scary vague user-facing warning when that feature is actually used in the next release), but their general stance has consistently been that you, as a company, have a right to enforce whatever restrictions are available on devices used by your employees so long as you own them, and so long as you accept whatever user-disclosure features they decide to implement. Likewise, you have a right to enforce a more limited suite of controls on your employee's personal devices, so long as it's all opt-in. I would presume any parent intending to enforce restrictions on a child's device also purchased that device. So Apple's stance here is really that parents should have less control over their children's devices than employers have over those of their employees? Or are they really talking about some exploit of the MDM framework? Because the way it's phrased here clearly seems to be framing MDM in general as a nefarious tool.

dziulius 8y ago
My understanding is that it's not parents who have access to devices (via MDM profiles), it's developers who create those apps?
terracatta 8y ago
Apple’s pejorative comments about MDM make sense if you consider Apple thinks MDM an necessary evil that they must provide for their phones to be viable in the enterprise. I think the prospect of MDM establishing itself as a necessary evil for consumer use-cases is such affront to their thoughts about individual data privacy rights that they would rather trash MDM than risk that possibility. If you want to get a sense of how Apple thinks parental management of a device and enterprise management of a device in a corporate setting differ, all you need to do is compare the experiences and features. MDM is like a nuke compared to screentime and parental controls. As a final note Apple refuses to even provide the management server portion of MDM, another clear signal that of their split feelings on the matter.
sjwright 8y ago
> They make this sound like MDM is some scary third-party attack on their platform, neglecting to point out MDM is a system they designed. There's always been some schizophrenia from Apple around MDM Apple is a huge, gargantuan company, and it wouldn't surprise me that the implementation details around enterprise deployment probably didn't get far up the chain to the people who actually care about this stuff. Someone like Tim Cook might have spent five minutes talking about its existence in 2018. > So Apple's stance here is really that parents should have less control over their children's devices than employers have over those of their employees? No, Apple's stance here is that app developers should have less control over your child's device than employers have over those of their employees. > the way it's phrased here clearly seems to be framing MDM in general as a nefarious tool. MDM is a nefarious tool when incorrectly used. Its intended use is to allow big corporates to deploy nerfed and bugged phones to their minions. Facebook and Google abused MDM a few months ago and the community cheered when Apple ripped these toys away from them. The same abuses are now discovered to be used to make creepy "child control" apps that place an app developer in control over your child'd entire phone. After all the shit went down against Facebook and Google, these app developers received fair warning that what they were doing was wrong.
KirinDave 8y ago
> They make this sound like MDM is some scary third-party attack on their platform, neglecting to point out MDM is a system they designed. There's always been some schizophrenia from Apple around MDM (publicize new control features to admins in one release, add a big scary vague user-facing warning when that feature is actually used in the next release), but their general stance has consistently been that you, as a company, have a right to enforce whatever restrictions are available on devices used by your employees so long as you own them, and so long as you accept whatever user-disclosure features they decide to implement. Likewise, you have a right to enforce a more limited suite of controls on your employee's personal devices, so long as it's all opt-in. Right, sure. I got a work device and the company owns it and I don't do my own personal stuff on it (and hopefully other folks follow suit). If the company screws up its security, those devices are utterly compromised. MDM, for all its good intention, is a comprehensive surveillance system for a phone. It is a little piece of the corporate panopticon on your pocket. That can actually be quite convenient, but I certainly think folks should keep the aspects of their lives separate. It's a bit different with kids and parents though? MDM is a massive invasion of privacy and unlike in the work phone relationship, we'd expect a vulnerable young person's entire personal life to be embedded on the device. Also, children generally don't have the option to walk away from their parents and find new, less restrictive parents. It is true, the parents own the device legally. They can take it away. That isn't necessarily a call for Apple to enable parents to run spyware run by third parties. Quite frankly, third parties no well-informed consumer should trust given their abysmal track records for privacy and security issues. The idea of Kaspersky running the intermediary rendezvous server for all of my child's private communications is pretty scary to me. I appreciate the desire to keep kids safe, but coming from an abusive home I have to tell you that computers were my escape from physical and mental abuse and I am fairly sure I wouldn't be alive today if my parents could have closed a net as powerful as MDM around my life.
xoa 8y ago
>So Apple's stance here is really that parents should have less control over their children's devices than employers have over those of their employees? Someone please correct me if I'm wrong as I haven't used any of these apps, but I thought the point here is that it's not the parents running an MDM server. I mean, I personally have long made use of MDM and profiles on iOS devices for myself and family, it's super useful (and necessary for some things like using S/MIME certs in native Mail). But I've done it via actual MDM, myself (you can also do a lot via simple distributed one shot profiles made with the free Apple Configurator software). There is no 3rd party involved. It sounds like here that it was 3rd party apps/services that were making use of MDM functionality. "On behalf of parents" sure, but there's still a fundamentally different relationship and set of expectations for loading an app via the general App Store vs specifically enrolling a device/loading a profile from an employer someone has contractual agreements with, or someone running an MDM server themselves on their own behalf. There isn't really any way around the fact that MDM offers enormous power over devices, much of which happens without any user interaction or much (if any) exposure via the GUI. That's much of the point of it after all. That power certainly offers avenues for abuse that are different in scope. I'm sure many of the 3rd parties are trustworthy and hopefully at least trying their best in terms of not themselves being hacked by malicious actors, but I think Apple also has a genuine legitimate concern here. A real goal for iOS is that someone can browse through the App Store and install absolutely anything they see and think looks interesting based purely on descriptions/reviews and face a known, fairly minimal and easy to reason about threat profile. Of course it hasn't always been perfect, but it's been a lot better at this then the general free for all. If some of those apps make use of MDM powers outside of normal MDM usage that breaks those expectations, that's not made up. FWIW I personally think Apple should be required to allow other stores and permanent device owner created master signing cert loading capability, even if only via offering a more expensive "developer" model of phone with that capability not fused off. But the security and privacy tradeoffs there are worthy of consideration and efforts to find the best balances, and even in those cases I'd still be fine with Apple having their own curated App Store that remained as strict as they wished.
- ghostly_s 8y ago
  I see, this all makes sense to me. This is definitely not the message Apple is conveying in this statement however, if you ask me.

dziulius 8y ago

My understanding is that it's not parents who have access to devices (via MDM profiles), it's developers who create those apps?

terracatta 8y ago

Apple’s pejorative comments about MDM make sense if you consider Apple thinks MDM an necessary evil that they must provide for their phones to be viable in the enterprise. I think the prospect of MDM establishing itself as a necessary evil for consumer use-cases is such affront to their thoughts about individual data privacy rights that they would rather trash MDM than risk that possibility. If you want to get a sense of how Apple thinks parental management of a device and enterprise management of a device in a corporate setting differ, all you need to do is compare the experiences and features. MDM is like a nuke compared to screentime and parental controls. As a final note Apple refuses to even provide the management server portion of MDM, another clear signal that of their split feelings on the matter.

sjwright 8y ago

> They make this sound like MDM is some scary third-party attack on their platform, neglecting to point out MDM is a system they designed. There's always been some schizophrenia from Apple around MDM Apple is a huge, gargantuan company, and it wouldn't surprise me that the implementation details around enterprise deployment probably didn't get far up the chain to the people who actually care about this stuff. Someone like Tim Cook might have spent five minutes talking about its existence in 2018. > So Apple's stance here is really that parents should have less control over their children's devices than employers have over those of their employees? No, Apple's stance here is that app developers should have less control over your child's device than employers have over those of their employees. > the way it's phrased here clearly seems to be framing MDM in general as a nefarious tool. MDM is a nefarious tool when incorrectly used. Its intended use is to allow big corporates to deploy nerfed and bugged phones to their minions. Facebook and Google abused MDM a few months ago and the community cheered when Apple ripped these toys away from them. The same abuses are now discovered to be used to make creepy "child control" apps that place an app developer in control over your child'd entire phone. After all the shit went down against Facebook and Google, these app developers received fair warning that what they were doing was wrong.

KirinDave 8y ago

> They make this sound like MDM is some scary third-party attack on their platform, neglecting to point out MDM is a system they designed. There's always been some schizophrenia from Apple around MDM (publicize new control features to admins in one release, add a big scary vague user-facing warning when that feature is actually used in the next release), but their general stance has consistently been that you, as a company, have a right to enforce whatever restrictions are available on devices used by your employees so long as you own them, and so long as you accept whatever user-disclosure features they decide to implement. Likewise, you have a right to enforce a more limited suite of controls on your employee's personal devices, so long as it's all opt-in. Right, sure. I got a work device and the company owns it and I don't do my own personal stuff on it (and hopefully other folks follow suit). If the company screws up its security, those devices are utterly compromised. MDM, for all its good intention, is a comprehensive surveillance system for a phone. It is a little piece of the corporate panopticon on your pocket. That can actually be quite convenient, but I certainly think folks should keep the aspects of their lives separate. It's a bit different with kids and parents though? MDM is a massive invasion of privacy and unlike in the work phone relationship, we'd expect a vulnerable young person's entire personal life to be embedded on the device. Also, children generally don't have the option to walk away from their parents and find new, less restrictive parents. It is true, the parents own the device legally. They can take it away. That isn't necessarily a call for Apple to enable parents to run spyware run by third parties. Quite frankly, third parties no well-informed consumer should trust given their abysmal track records for privacy and security issues. The idea of Kaspersky running the intermediary rendezvous server for all of my child's private communications is pretty scary to me. I appreciate the desire to keep kids safe, but coming from an abusive home I have to tell you that computers were my escape from physical and mental abuse and I am fairly sure I wouldn't be alive today if my parents could have closed a net as powerful as MDM around my life.

xoa 8y ago

>So Apple's stance here is really that parents should have less control over their children's devices than employers have over those of their employees? Someone please correct me if I'm wrong as I haven't used any of these apps, but I thought the point here is that it's not the parents running an MDM server. I mean, I personally have long made use of MDM and profiles on iOS devices for myself and family, it's super useful (and necessary for some things like using S/MIME certs in native Mail). But I've done it via actual MDM, myself (you can also do a lot via simple distributed one shot profiles made with the free Apple Configurator software). There is no 3rd party involved. It sounds like here that it was 3rd party apps/services that were making use of MDM functionality. "On behalf of parents" sure, but there's still a fundamentally different relationship and set of expectations for loading an app via the general App Store vs specifically enrolling a device/loading a profile from an employer someone has contractual agreements with, or someone running an MDM server themselves on their own behalf. There isn't really any way around the fact that MDM offers enormous power over devices, much of which happens without any user interaction or much (if any) exposure via the GUI. That's much of the point of it after all. That power certainly offers avenues for abuse that are different in scope. I'm sure many of the 3rd parties are trustworthy and hopefully at least trying their best in terms of not themselves being hacked by malicious actors, but I think Apple also has a genuine legitimate concern here. A real goal for iOS is that someone can browse through the App Store and install absolutely anything they see and think looks interesting based purely on descriptions/reviews and face a known, fairly minimal and easy to reason about threat profile. Of course it hasn't always been perfect, but it's been a lot better at this then the general free for all. If some of those apps make use of MDM powers outside of normal MDM usage that breaks those expectations, that's not made up. FWIW I personally think Apple should be required to allow other stores and permanent device owner created master signing cert loading capability, even if only via offering a more expensive "developer" model of phone with that capability not fused off. But the security and privacy tradeoffs there are worthy of consideration and efforts to find the best balances, and even in those cases I'd still be fine with Apple having their own curated App Store that remained as strict as they wished.

ghostly_s 8y ago
I see, this all makes sense to me. This is definitely not the message Apple is conveying in this statement however, if you ask me.