• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

A federal judge has dismissed portions of a class-action privacy complaint alleging that Apple wrongly gathered information about iPhone users' interactions with Apple-owned apps.

The ruling, issued this week by U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, allows the plaintiffs to attempt to revive the claims he threw out.

The new decision stems from a class-action complaint brought in November 2022 by New York resident Elliot Libman, and later joined by several other mobile device users. They alleged that Apple gathered data from proprietary apps -- including Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Books and Apple News -- even after users turned off settings to allow tracking by apps, and to share iPhone or iPad analytics.

The complaint cited research by app developers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakry, who reported that the company collected data about people's interactions with its apps even when the users hadn't agreed to share analytics information. Apple has long contended that this type of data collection isn't “tracking” because the information originates with its own apps and services.

The company initially urged Davila to dismiss the lawsuit for a host of reasons -- including that mobile users allegedly consented to the data collection by accepting the software license agreement and privacy policy.

The plaintiffs countered that they withdrew consent by toggling off settings that read “allow apps to request to track,” “share iPhone analytics,” or “share iPad analytics.”

But Apple argued that those privacy controls didn't apply to data collected from its own apps.

In September 2024, Davila agreed with Apple regarding the setting “allow apps to request to track,” writing that Apple informs users that it requires app developers to ask permission before tracking activity “across apps or websites they don't own.”

That language, according to Davila, makes clear that the setting doesn't apply to Apple's collection of data from its proprietary apps.

But Davila rejected Apple's argument regarding the control to opt out of sharing analytics data.

That ruling allowed the plaintiffs to proceed with some claims, including that Apple violated its contract with users. But the ruling also dismissed other claims -- including charges that Apple violated Californians' right to privacy, enshrined in the state constitution. Those dismissals were without prejudice, meaning that the plaintiffs could refile them.

In April 2025 the plaintiffs filed a revised complaint that included many of the counts Davila previously dismissed -- including the claim that Apple violated Californians' constitutional right to privacy.

This week, Davila dismissed those counts for the second time for a host of reasons. Among others, he ruled that the allegations, even if true, wouldn't prove that Apple ran afoul of California's constitution.

He noted that people who accuse companies of violating California's constitutional right to privacy must show they had a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in the data at issue, adding that the plaintiffs failed to make that showing.

"Plaintiffs’ allegations concern data Apple allegedly collected from plaintiffs’ interactions with Apple’s own apps," he wrote. "It is difficult to see how consumers would have a reasonable expectation of privacy in this context."

He gave the plaintiffs until February 18 to amend their complaint.