Stop Apple Health Accessing My Contacts!

All very useful features to make life easier. But why should it matter to you, or anyone for that matter, why it matters to someone else? Who knows? Some people might be control freaks and that’s their right. Or maybe not everyone is comfortable being entirely complacent with security and completely content entrusting some of their personal information to someone else, tech genius or not. In my personal opinion, unless there’s some legitimate legal reason otherwise, it is no one’s darn business how much control a person chooses to have over their own life, phone, personal info, etc. and why.

@Per Axel. That is an awesome explanation of how apps link you to other apps, websites, advertising, and even your contacts whenever you open an app, watch an embedded video, or click on a link. Love your advice to “refresh” your privacy report daily. Truly excellent idea! I’ll start doing that.

I’ve turned off Share iPhone Analytics, Personalized Advertising, and almost all Location Services too, because Apple is such a nosy little clucker. 😁

Why would you NOT want to know what the heck is going on. I have the SAME issue that just came up today since I recently turned on the privacy report setting on my phone. My CLOCK and Health say they are accessing two things: Clock - media library - what the HECK does my clock need access to the media library and before you ask "why should you care" which is a really odd question -- why do you NOT care is the better question. In the case of the Health app it says it's accessing my contacts. I DO NOT want it accessing my PERSONAL CONTACTS. WHO WOULD WANT THAT????? I mean honestly?????

I did THINK about it. I GET why health is trying to access contacts but I don't have it set to do so. As for the media library and clock - yeah, sorry maybe I am stupid as you are implying but that really doesn't make sense.

Clear Hippa violations. Maybe FTC can find out who purchases that data? ie: Accurint, Lexis-Nexus or Health Insurance Providers. It would be a shame if someones parents contact info and genetic health problems got entered in "Risk Software" that sets your health insurance rate. Just saying.

WhyIsAppleGoingDownhill wrote:

Clear Hippa violations. Maybe FTC can find out who purchases that data? ie: Accurint, Lexis-Nexus or Health Insurance Providers. It would be a shame if someones parents contact info and genetic health problems got entered in "Risk Software" that sets your health insurance rate. Just saying.

No, it's not a "Hippa" violation. It's not even a HIPAA violation. The data is not at any time leaving your phone. Apple is not selling your Health data.

cqskie wrote:

What is the problem with trying to protect my privacy and if the health app which I do not want or use accesses my contacts that is a problem!

Except this is not a privacy issue. Your information is never leaving your phone. It is never being transferred to anyone else. It's no different than the Phone app accessing our contacts. Or the Mail app accessing your contacts.

You say "you can turn it off for Calendar, Camera & Photos", but you don't mention how. How do we do that? Usually we can turn features off under PRIVACY and then under each of those items, but each -calendar - camera and - photo says there IS NO application requesting access to TURN OFF. How do we turn off what is not there? Many people do not want those "features" and as such we should be able to turn them off. For example, we don't want photos using names to facial recognition nor location, especially when our pictures are of our children, that is a SAFETY issue that we should all be adamant about!

justmeAppletree wrote:

For example, we don't want photos using names to facial recognition nor location, especially when our pictures are of our children, that is a SAFETY issue that we should all be adamant about!

Why is that a safety issue? The only place the pictures show the names is on your device. I suppose if you're leaving your devices unlocked and unsupervised, it might possibly constitute a threat. But, otherwise, I don't see how. So, make sure that you have a lock code set up on all of your devices. Don't leave them sitting around unlocked and don't share the lock code.

dlmac77 wrote:

Yes, same reason I ended up here --wth? There's no need for Health to be checking my contacts when I purposely turned it off for privacy reasons to begin with.

No you didn't. You should have worked out that you can't turn it off, for the reasons every reasonable contributor has already pointed out. It's like covering over your mirror in case you see yourself. No privacy risk.

dlmac77 wrote:

What about the privacy rights of the contacts?

What about them? Did you gain these contacts in some sort of illicit way? If you didn't, if the contacts were freely given to you, then there is no issue. You haven't shared them with anyone else. You haven't published them. All you did was the equivalent of copying them from your address book to your Xmas card list. Both things are under your control. No third party has looked at them.

Until quite recently, in the U.S., almost everyone's address and phone number was in a book you could get for free or find at the library. You can still get basic contact information by going to whitepages.com. You can get address information from municipal tax records. Voter registration information is, I believe public.

I appreciate this response, but it doesn’t seem like the whole story - Health accesses my contacts almost every night at slightly different times when I haven’t opened the app for anything. The only thing I can think of is if Focus is connected to Health and reviewing the contacts I allow? If that was the case though, it would do it at the same time every night.

It would be helpful if there was an explanation (transparency) of why the app is accessing Contacts at times when I’m not aware the app is in use accessing those Contacts. I appreciate the App Privacy Report, I just wish the was more clarity on why the apps are accessing other apps/data. Apple may not be able to do that for all apps, but they could for their own.

There are a lot of things that Apple accesses on your iPhone, and some that your carrier does. It would be a lengthy document to describe them all. But since this non-issue involves YOUR Health app accessing YOUR contacts there is no privacy issue at all so Apple is not going to include an explanation. This is one of those reasonable person situations where it is assumed a reasonable person would understand this so Apple does not include any needless explanation. If you think they should then tell Apple here -> Feedback - iPhone - Apple

To add on to LD150's excellent analogy this would be like expecting the manufacturer of your mirror to include an explanation of when you look in a mirror it shows your image.

I appreciate your response, it’s helpful. Thanks for taking the time to explain. Just for discussion sake, if you think about it - the first mirrors did have to be explained that light was simply reflecting back off the surface - it wasn’t intuitively first understood by “reasonable” folk. Rather than a lengthy explanation, I feel you found a rather direct way to explain a complex thing and that’s appreciated by people who don’t know the ways in which technology is designed. People are reasonably concerned about all things privacy these days, as trust has been broken. Also, privacy agreements are quite lengthy and we’re expected to read those 😆