> You'd think with the privacy issues surrounding contact tracing apps, they would have taken a closer look. Seems negligent not to. I don't think if this is a

> You'd think with the privacy issues surrounding contact tracing apps, they would have taken a closer look. Seems negligent not to. I don't think if this is a good argument, though. Apple is pushing governments that want a contact tracing app to use their Exposure Notification API, which has strong privacy maintaining limitations - for example, it's decentralized, on the phone. In fact, Apple specifically designates contact tracing apps as ones approved and using the Exposure Notification API[1]. The apps that don't use this API are limited - specifically, they can't keep Bluetooth on in the background (meaning, when the phone is locked). > How does Apple get away with both the accolades when it keeps a 'curated walled garden' ... yet they get a pass when they end up allowing things users would be upset about? In general, the "accolades" are with respect to how the phone treats apps, as well as in comparison to Google's Play Store. Apple is much more strict in their review process than Google, so blatantly malicious things like malware don't get through. In this specific case, without more details I do believe that Apple treated the app as a "normal app", as it didn't use the Exposure Notification API, and what is meant by "vetted" here is that it was reviewed using the normal app review process. If that's not the case I would agree Apple has some culpability but without those details and thus assuming that this app was not treated specially, I don't think Apple is at fault here. If this had happened with an app using the API this would have been a much bigger news story as it would have shown that the review process for the contact tracing apps is very poor since contact tracing apps are specifically forbidden from both getting location data, which this article is talking about. 1: https://developer.apple.com/contact/request/download/Exposure_Notification_Addendum.pdf https://developer.apple.com/contact/request/download/Exposur...