Google delaying updating its iOS apps to provide privacy details? Here's what the company has to say

Google has denied speculations of not updating its suite of apps for the iPhone to skip providing privacy details. The search engine giant has not updated its apps for the iPhone for over four weeks now.

Speculations are rife that the search engine giant, which offers multiple services through its apps like Google Maps, Google Drive, Gmail, YouTube, is delaying updates to avoid providing privacy details. As per the new Apple iOS 14 privacy policy, developers have to provide the type of data their app collects from users. Several apps have abided by the requirements and updated the privacy details on the Apple App Store. However, Google is yet to update the details for all its apps.

The search engine giant offers multiple services via its apps like Gmail, YouTube, Google Pay, Google Maps, Google Drive, Google Sheets, etc. The search engine giant last updated its apps on the Apple App Store on December 7, 2020 – a day before Apple’s order of updating the privacy details. 

A Fast Company report states that Google apps were updated a day before the mandate to skip providing privacy details. "By getting in all its existing apps’ updates on or before December 7, Google has managed to avoid filling out a privacy label for any of their apps so far. You can verify this yourself by launching the App Store app on your iPhone, selecting any Google-owned app in the store, and then checking its privacy label on the app’s listing," The report stated.