Apple rejects app that uses contact info and Facebook to verify ballots
What you need to know
- Apple has rejected an app that would verify ballots in Pennsylvania.
- The app uses contact info and Facebook paired with publicly available ballot information.
- Apple says that the app violates the App Store privacy rules.
Reported by The Information (via AppleInsider), Apple has rejected an app that was built to verify ballots in Pennsylvania. While the app was approved is available for download through the Google Play Store, Apple says that the app violates its App Store privacy guidelines.
The app, called Drive Turnout, was reportedly held up in Apple's App Store review process for two weeks before finally being rejected completely.
The app asked users to share access to their contacts and Facebook friends to find out who may have not yet had their ballot counted.
According to the app's description, it uses the information you share as well as publicly available voter information to identify the people that you may want to reach out to vote.
Apple rejected the app, saying that developers are not allowed to collect personal information from "any source that is not directly from the user or without the user's explicit consent, even public databases." Ari Steinberg, the developer behind the app, questioned Apple's authority to determine if the app violated privacy.
The rejection of the app comes less than a week before the United States presidential election which is set to occur on Tuesday, November 3.
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Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.