Stop Apple Health Accessing My Contacts!

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.

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 😆

Unhelpful. There are lots of reasons one may not want to have an app access contacts.

your reply comes across as patronising. Apps do not exist only on a phone. They leak data accidents or deliberate contact harvesting like WhatsApp.

not sure why yours is recommended answer. The guy below who explains why Health is accessing contacts and how possibly to prevent is a lot more helpful

Thank you for contributing to Apple Support Communities. Let me explain.

Apple pay for the forum. It is not public domain. Their community specialists chose the Apple Recommended response. That is what made in the recommended response. Only the author of the original thread can mark responses as best answer or helpful but you can tag responses as helpful and after 4 tags the poster can win kudos points. You can report posts for breaking the ToU (including calling people snide) when you achieve level 2. I hope that explains it.

Ruaraidh.Innes wrote:

Second of your responses basically saying if you do not like what we (Apple) give you then get rid of your phone.

Really helpful, NOT

But pragmatic. No one here can change how the phone works. Apple may or may not change it in the future. If the phone you have now is so upsetting to you that it causes you to lash out at people on a public forum, it may be better for your peace of mind to get a different one. But, it's all your choice in the end.

If Health is turned OFF then why is it still accessing your contacts when it [the app] has absolutely no reason to know anything as you have toggled the switch to OFF. OFF has a specific meaning in English.

The question is a very valid one. User data and how/when it is used by private corporations is an important topic.

I also take issue with Apple Health accessing Contacts several times/day for no reason what so ever.

There is no way for me to delete the Health app, but I’m actively not using it.

So there shoudn’t be any functions on my phone that require the Health app and the Contacts app to communicate.

[Edited by Moderator] 

Is this forum to help people or to tell them deal with it or get a different phone? The attitude is unjust to people who are asking why this products apps are accessing certain data on their phone when it is not being used.. it is a very valid question.

[Edited by Moderator]