The App Store page for Threads lists “Health & Fitness” under the Analytics and App Functionality sections of App Privacy.

I am completely unfamiliar with what that implies or what access would actually be allowed, but I can see how that would raise concern.

I sort of wonder about that, too -- it's not well reflected in their privacy policy.[0]

An altruistic guess -- maybe another way for them to achieve geolocation if other methods are hindered?

[0]: https://terms.threads.com/privacy-policy

That's a huge dose of benefit of the doubt you're giving to the Zuck. Do you for a second believe that granting the Zuck access to your Health & Fitness data that he will stop at just getting the information to geolocate you or would it be more like "let's just suck in all of the data we are given access to and then maybe at a later date we can use it beyond what we originally needed"?

I have an iPhone, I can see which apps access Health & Fitness data, and must in fact explicitly give apps access to that data. Threads does not have access to that data and I can not even find some way to get it to ask me to access that data.

So what are we really talking about here?

> So what are we really talking about here?

The very first thing in the listing for the app in the AppStore. Why are you so obtuse to this?

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/threads-an-instagram-app/id644...

DATA LINKED TO YOU The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:

Health & Fitness Purchases Financial Info Location Contact Info Contacts User Content Search History Browsing History Identifiers Usage Data Sensitive Info Diagnostics Other Data

When you read "data linked to you" don't think about the store of health data that's *on your phone.£

Think instead of all the data that all huge number of advertising networks, like the one paying qz.com's bills, that have massive hoards of data about you, without your consent, that gets bought and sold every single day.

This is not a trivial distinction! The health data on an iPhone is secure, and Threads is not getting access to it. What this is talking about is Threads linking up with all the data that all the other advertisers are already doing!

I deleted my Facebook account circa 2012 when I heard what some of their ML engineers were up to at a casual meet up, like geolocation all photos and and doing facial recognition to place which bars everyone had been in over the weekend. Back then, before the deep learning revolution, this was a mind-blowing capability. These days, I have no idea what ad networks are up to but rest assured, by getting all of HN to load the ads that are served from qz.com the advertisers have now gained far more than they did when I installed Threads (because I already have an instagram account and that does all these same things. Five years after deleting my Facebook account I was ready to give in because the rest of the networks had the data anyway).

> Five years after deleting my Facebook account I was ready to give in

Because you became weak and caved does not mean the rest of have to give in as well. I have never created an IG account, nor will I be using Threads. I abhor Meta, and will never allow their apps to be installed on my devices. Your cavalier attitude about your data is your business, and my attitude is polar opposite. You coming in and trying to white knight the Threads listing as "nothing to see here, move along" is just this side of being a Meta shill. Some of us still have principles.

Your attacks against me are misplaced.

If you care about privacy, then you should care about the specifics of how it is being abused so that you can defend against it. So you should care that the health data is not coming fro, your phone, it's coming from the massive databases of information that Facebook/Meta and toooooooons of other companies have on you and sell trade and swap.

If you care only should maligning Threads, then continue to obscure the threat to privacy and how the massive network of advertisers is monetizing your health data against your will. Because bringing up laws about banning apps from taking your health data from your mobile phone, which is what spawned this thread, will only detract from efforts to improve privacy, because it would do nothing to 8pm rove privacy here.

So instead of insulting me and throwing around fake "white knight" allegations, at least try to keep up with the conversation.

Perhaps a feature that has not yet been turned on in the app itself yet.

lol no

Stating that this somehow means it has access to your health information is just straight up misinformation.

I don't even see an option to give it access to health information, which is tightly controlled on iOS.

Apple should really communicate more clearly what they mean in these privacy reports, because I don’t think it’s insane to interpret “The following data may be collected and linked to you: … Health & Fitness” in this way.

An incorrect interpretation, sure, but not one you have to be dumb to make.

> Apple should really communicate more clearly what they mean in these privacy reports

This information is provided by the app developer; in this case Meta are telling Apple they use your health data and Apple is merely showing that information in the App Store.

Yes; my point is that 1% of the people who see this while browsing the App Store understand enough about the HealthKit data access requirements to interpret the language that Apple chooses correctly. And Apple does choose the language here, it’s selected by Meta from a list of Apple-created options.

> my point is that 1% of the people who see this while browsing the App Store understand enough about the HealthKit data access requirements to interpret the language that Apple chooses correctly.

How so? There is no hidden meaning here; Facebook are simply telling Apple that they will access your health information, and Apple is passing that information along. There’s no misinterpretation. The fact that the app doesn’t currently request this information is immaterial – Facebook are saying they will. The straightforward interpretation of the privacy card is the correct one.

Until someone provides explanation for exactly what that does mean, how is anyone to know that it is an "incorrect" interpretation?

Here's exactly what it means: Someone at Facebook, when creating the listing for the Threads app on the appstore, told Apple that the app might possibly collect Health data (etc). These labels are entirely based on self reporting by the person doing the upload. That's it, that's the entirety of what these privacy label things mean: the company making the app has made these claims about what it collects.

In this case Facebook appear to have simply ticked every possible box for data collection regardless of whether the app actually does it or not. Note you can't just get health data on iOS without asking, so people would notice if they tried. My guess is that actually figuring out what they do/don't collect was too hard, so they just said yes to everything.

Why is Apple at fault for what an ad-ridden article claims without evidence?

Seriously I could barely even find the claim you speak of, when every other sentence is punctuated by a half-screen advertisement.

Why accept the claims of such obvious click-bait without evidence? There's no reason to believe anything said in the article, particularly when it's claims can easily be checked and shown to be false.

It’s not from the article. It’s clearly stated on the app store page for Threads: https://imgur.com/a/Lk8Olb6

And yet again, this is not data that is coming from your phone's store of health data.

This is data that is linked to you, and the spamminess of the ads on qz.com is likely doing far more invasion of people's privacy than Threads could even dream of.

This comment thread was about Threads taking health data "from your phone," Which is does not do, and which that sceeenshot does not say it does.

This sort of data linking is absolutely pervasive in the web advertising industry, and it is bad. But let's not falsely say it's coming from the store of data on your phone, it's coming from advertising networks like those that pay for qz.com's hosting bills and profits.

I think the ambiguous display of these things on the store, when few other apps show this, is cause for questions and concern. Everything you just said is equally speculative.

I agree. It’s technically impossible for them to get this data without OS-brokered consent. Apple’s app store privacy card is extremely misleading here, it is based on a self-assessment not what APIs the app accesses. It looks to me like Meta simply checked every box in the self assessment form.

Instagram is the same and probably has been that way since inception.