Apple Safari browser may send your browsing data to Chinese company Tencent

With the release of iOS 13, Apple has updated its “Fraudulent Website Warning” feature in Safari web browser. As part of this update, Apple may now send your browsing data to Chinese company Tencent. Before this update, Apple made use of Google’s Safe Browsing technology alone for “Fraudulent Website Warning” feature.

Google Safe Browsing shows warnings to users when they attempt to navigate to dangerous sites or download dangerous files. Almost four billion devices every day use Google’s Safe Browsing technology. We are not sure whether Tencent can truly offer the same technology which Google’s Safe Browsing technology offers. Apple has not revealed the reason why it is sharing the data with Tencent and how it believes that user’s data is safe with Tencent. Tencent is known for working closely with the Chinese government on several occasions for censoring free speech and others.

Apple’s “Fraudulent Website Warning” feature is “on” by default in iOS Safari, which means millions of users could potentially be affected by this privacy issue.

Source: Matthew Green Image Credit: The Verge