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# Adopting best practices for privacy and user preferences

Minimize your use of sensitive information and provide a clear
statement of what information you do use and how you use it.

## Overview

To protect user privacy, the system handles camera and sensor inputs
without passing the information to apps directly. Instead, the system
enables your app to seamlessly interact with a user’s surroundings
and to automatically receive input from the user. For example, the
system handles the eye- and hand-position data needed to detect
interactions with your app’s content. Similarly, the system provides
a way to automatically alter a view’s appearance when someone looks at it,
without your app ever knowing what the user is looking at.

In the few cases where you actually need access to hand position or
information about the user’s surroundings, the system requires you
to obtain authorization from the user first.

![The system displays an alert asking for permission to provide hand data to an app.](images/com.apple.visionOS/tracking-authorization@2x.png)

> Important: It’s your responsibility to protect any data your app
> collects, and to use it in responsible and privacy-preserving ways.
> Don’t ask for data that you don’t need, be transparent about how
> you use the data you acquire, and respect the choices of the person
> whose data it is.

For information about how to specify the privacy data your app uses,
see <doc://com.apple.documentation/documentation/BundleResources/describing-data-use-in-privacy-manifests>.
For general information about privacy, see
<doc://com.apple.documentation/documentation/UIKit/protecting-the-user-s-privacy>.

### Adopt the system-provided input mechanisms

On Apple Vision Pro, people use their eyes and hands to interact with the items
they see in front of them. Where they look determines where the
system applies focus, and a tap gesture with either hand generates
a touch event on that focused item. The system can also detect when
someone’s fingers interact with virtual items in the person’s field
of vision. When you adopt the standard UIKit and
SwiftUI event-handling mechanisms, you get all of these interactions
automatically.

For most apps, the system-provided gesture recognizers are sufficient
for responding to interactions. Although you can get the position of
someone’s hands with ARKit, doing so isn’t necessary for most apps.
Collect hand-position data only when the system doesn’t offer what
you need. For example, you might use hand-position data to attach 3D
content to the person’s hands. Some other things to remember about
hand-position data:

- People can deny your request for access to hand-position data. Be prepared to handle situations where the data isn’t available.
- You must present an immersive space to access hand data. When you open an immersive space, the system hides other apps.

For information about how to handle the standard-system events, see
the <doc://com.apple.documentation/documentation/SwiftUI> and <doc://com.apple.documentation/documentation/UIKit> documentation.

### Provide clear messaging around privacy-sensitive features

The following ARKit features require you to provide a usage description
string in your app’s `Info.plist` file:

- World-tracking data
- Hand-tracking data

Other privacy-sensitive technologies in visionOS also require you to
supply usage description strings. For example, you provide usage
descriptions for the Core Location features you adopt. These strings
communicate why your app needs the data, and how you plan to use the
data to help the person using your app. The first time you request
authorization to use the technology, the system prompts the person
to grant or deny access to your app. The system includes your
usage-description string in the dialog it displays.

For information about requesting access to ARKit data, see
<doc://com.apple.documentation/documentation/ARKit>.
For guidance on how to craft good messages around privacy-friendly
features, see [Human Interface Guidelines](doc://com.apple.documentation/design/Human-Interface-Guidelines/privacy).

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