Prioritize user privacy and data security in your app. Discuss best practices for data handling, user consent, and security measures to protect user information.

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Submission Rejected: Guideline 5.1.1 - Legal - Privacy - Data Collection and Storage
Hello Experts, I am in need of your help with this feedback from the App Reviewer. Issue Description: One or more purpose strings in the app do not sufficiently explain the use of protected resources. Purpose strings must clearly and completely describe the app's use of data and, in most cases, provide an example of how the data will be used. Next Steps: Update the location purpose string to explain how the app will use the requested information and provide a specific example of how the data will be used. See the attached screenshot. Resources: Purpose strings must clearly describe how an app uses the ability, data, or resource. The following are hypothetical examples of unclear purpose strings that would not pass review: "App would like to access your Contacts" "App needs microphone access" Feedback #2 "Regarding 5.1.1, we understand why your app needs access to location. However, the permission request alert does not sufficiently explain this to your users before accessing the location. To resolve this issue, it would be appropriate to revise the location permission request, specify why your app needs access, and provide an example of how your app will use the user's data. To learn more about purpose string requirements, watch a video from App Review with tips for writing clear purpose strings. We look forward to reviewing your app once the appropriate changes have been made." May I know how can I update my purpose string? I appealed on the first feedback by explaining what is the purpose of it but got the Feedback #2. TYIA!!
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242
Jun ’25
Detecting SIM Swap and Implementing SIM Binding in iOS
Hi Forum, We’re building a security-focused SDK for iOS that includes SIM Binding and SIM Swap detection to help prevent fraud and unauthorised device access, particularly in the context of banking and fintech apps. We understand that iOS limits access to SIM-level data, and that previously available APIs (such as those in CoreTelephony, now deprecated from iOS 16 onwards) provide only limited support for these use cases. We have a few questions and would appreciate any guidance from the community or Apple engineers: Q1. Are there any best practices or Apple-recommended approaches for binding a SIM to a device or user account? Q2. Is there a reliable way to detect a SIM swap when the app is not running (e.g., via system callback, entitlement, or background mechanism)? Q3. Are fields like GID1, GID2, or ICCID accessible through any public APIs or entitlements (such as com.apple.coretelephony.IdentityAccess)? If so, what is the process to request access? Q4. For dual SIM and eSIM scenarios, is there a documented approach to identify which SIM is active or whether a SIM slot has changed? Q5. In a banking or regulated environment, is it possible for an app vendor (e.g., a bank) to acquire certain entitlements from Apple and securely expose that information to a security SDK like ours? What would be the compliant or recommended way to structure such a partnership? Thanks in advance for any insights!
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472
Jul ’25
Keychain Item Invalidation After Interrupted Face ID Reset on iOS 18.3.1
I am working on improving Keychain item storage secured with Face ID using SecAccessControlCreateWithFlags. The implementation uses the .biometryAny flag as shown below: SecAccessControlCreateWithFlags( kCFAllocatorDefault, kSecAttrAccessibleWhenUnlockedThisDeviceOnly, .biometryAny, &error ) While this approach generally works as expected, I encountered a specific edge case during testing. On iOS 18.3.1 with Xcode 15.4, the following sequence causes the Keychain item to become inaccessible: Navigate to Settings > Face ID & Passcode and select Reset Face ID. Before setting up a new Face ID, tap the Back button to exit the setup process. Reopen the Face ID setup and complete the enrollment. Return to the app—previously stored Keychain items protected by .biometryAny are no longer available. This behavior appears to be a change introduced in recent iOS versions. In versions prior to iOS 15, resetting or deleting Face ID entries did not invalidate existing Keychain items protected by .biometryAny. This difference in behavior between iOS versions raises questions about the changes to biometric protection handling. Any suggestions are welcomed that might shine a light on what the best practice to use keychain access control and prevent the data to become unavailable.
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529
Feb ’25
App Attest attestationData request fails with 400 Bad Request (no X-Request-ID)
Hello Apple Team We are integrating App Attest with our backend and seeing a 400 Bad Request response when calling the attestation endpoint. The issue is that the response does not include an X-Request-ID or JSON error payload with id and code, which makes it hard to diagnose. Instead, it only returns a receipt blob. Request Details URL: https://data-development.appattest.apple.com/v1/attestationData Request Headers: Authorization: eyJraWQiOiI0RjVLSzRGV1JaIiwidHlwIjoiSldUIiwiYWxnIjoiRVMyNTYifQ.eyJpc3MiOiJOOVNVR1pNNjdRIiwiZXhwIjoxNzU3MDUxNTYwLCJpYXQiOjE3NTcwNDc5NjB9.MEQCIF236MqPCl6Vexg7RcPUMK8XQeACXogldnpuiNnGQnzgAiBQqASdbJ64g58xfWGpbzY3iohvxBSO5U5ZE3l87JjfmQ Content-Type: application/octet-stream Request Body: (Binary data, logged as [B@59fd7d35) Response Status: 400 Bad Request Response Headers: Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2025 04:52:40 GMT x-b3-traceid: 4c42e18094022424 x-b3-spanid: 4c42e18094022424 Response Body (truncated): "receipt": h'308006092A864886F70D01070... Problem The response does not include X-Request-ID. The response does not include JSON with id or code. Only a receipt blob is returned. Questions Can the x-b3-traceid be used by Apple to trace this failed request internally? Is it expected for some failures to return only a receipt blob without X-Request-ID? How should we interpret this error so we can handle it properly in production? Thanks in advance for your guidance.
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311
Sep ’25
iOS 18 - Intermittent keychain issue
Hi, We're encountering an intermittent issue where certain users are unexpectedly logged out of our app and unable to log in again. We believe we've narrrowed down the issue to the Keychain due to the following reasons: We use a keychain item to determine if the member is logged in or not. Failure to retrieve the value leads the app to believe the member is logged out. API error logs on the server show 3 missing values in fields that are each populated from items stored in the keychain. Additional Notes: The issue is hard to reproduce and seems to affect only a subset of users. In some cases, uninstalling and reinstalling the app temporarily resolves the problem, but the issue recurs after a period of time. The behavior appears to have coincided with the release of iOS 18. We’re using the “kSecAttrAccessibleWhenUnlocked” accessibility attribute. Given that our app doesn’t perform background operations, we wouldn’t expect this to be an issue. We’re also considering changing this to "kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlockThisDeviceOnly" to see if this might resolve the issue. We're the keychain-swift library to interact with the keychain. We are currently adding extensive logging around our keychain implementation to confirm our findings but are looking for any additional input. Questions: Has anyone encountered similar keychain behavior on iOS 18? Are there known changes or stability issues with the keychain in iOS 18 that might lead to such intermittent “item not found” errors? Any recommended workarounds or troubleshooting steps that could help isolate the problem further? Thanks for any help you can provide.
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598
Feb ’25
MSAL framework return force authentication
Hi, We are using the MSAL library to authenticate users, with SSO authentication implemented through the Microsoft Authenticator app. The problem is that once or twice a day, a prompt for forced authentication appears, indicating that silent token acquisition is failing and resulting in a requirement for forced authentication. Below are some of the logs: ================================================= 2025-08-28 11:00:05.034 [Info] [AppDelegate.swift:121] application(:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:) > MSAL message: TID=751353 MSAL 1.8.1 iOS 18.5 [2025-08-28 10:00:05 - EC9D1457-2D70-4878-926F-553391EBC9D3] [MSAL] Silent flow finished. Result (null), error: -51115 error domain: MSIDErrorDomain 2025-08-28 11:00:05.034 [Info] [AppDelegate.swift:121] application(:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:) > MSAL message: TID=751353 MSAL 1.8.1 iOS 18.5 [2025-08-28 10:00:05 - EC9D1457-2D70-4878-926F-553391EBC9D3] [MSAL] acquireTokenSilent returning with error: (MSALErrorDomain, -50002) Masked(not-null) ==================================================== We initially raised this issue with Microsoft, but according to them: In the app's logs, the single one failure it contains, was when the SSO extension returned the error com.apple.AuthenticationServices.AuthorizationError, -6000 during a silent call. This error code is generated by the system framework (Apple), not by our code. It indicates that the framework encountered an unexpected internal issue before or after calling the SSO extension. MSAL returning interaction_required to the client app is the most effective way to recover from this error (as you mention, after the user selects the account the app continues working as expected). Additionally, as you also mention, the interactive call is made by switching to Authenticator (not displaying a "window" without leaving Eva Lite app), which means MSAL is not able to use the SSO extension and is using the fallback to legacy authentication. The recommended next step is for the customer to request support directly from Apple as this is an issue on their side. Additionally, the customer can also try to update to the latest iOS, in case Apple has already fixed this issue. ============================================= STEPS TO REPRODUCE There is no such steps its just that this is an enterprise application which is getting used on managed devices[iPhone 14]. The device are managed using some intune policy. Platform and Version: iOS Development Environment: Xcode 15, macOS 13.6.1 Run-time Configuration: iOS 18 Please let me know if there are any solutions to resolve this problem. Thank you.
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810
Sep ’25
ASCredentialProvider/ProvidesTextToInsert macOS support
Hi, ASCredentialProvider had been almost identically implemented on both iOS and macOS so far, but the ProvidesTextToInsert feature was only added to iOS. It would have been a crucial point to make Credential Providers available in all textfields, without users having to rely on developers correctly setting roles for their Text Fields. It's right now impossible to paste credentials into Notes, or some other non-password text box both in web and desktop apps for example, in a seamless, OS-supported way without abusing Accessibility APIs which are understandably disallowed in Mac App Store apps. Or just pasting an SSH key, or anything. On macOS this has so many possibilities. It could even have a terminal command. It's even more interesting that "Passwords..." is an option in macOS's AutoFill context menu, just like on iOS, however Credential Providers did not gain this feature on macOS, only on iOS. Is this an upcoming feature, or should we find alternatives? Or should I file a feature request? If it's already in the works, it's pointless to file it.
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470
Apr ’25
Unexpectedly invalidated Biometrics in iOS 18.3.2 or later
There is a sudden surge of users in our apps with invalidated biometrics. Even though the issue is being handled correctly and the user has another way to login, some of the users forgot their passwords and they can not login. Is there any known issue with Biometrics in iOS 18.3.2 or later? There is a (possible) related discussion here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256011565
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95
Apr ’25
How to Hide the "Save to Another Device" Option During Passkey Registration?
I'm working on integrating Passkey functionality into my iOS app (targeting iOS 16.0+), and I'm facing an issue where the system dialog still shows the "Save to another device" option during Passkey registration. I want to hide this option to force users to create Passkeys only on the current device. 1. My Current Registration Implementation Here’s the code I’m using to create a Passkey registration request. I’ve tried to use ASAuthorizationPlatformPublicKeyCredentialProvider (which is supposed to target platform authenticators like Face ID/Touch ID), but the "Save to another device" option still appears: `// Initialize provider for platform authenticators let provider = ASAuthorizationPlatformPublicKeyCredentialProvider(relyingPartyIdentifier: domain) // Create registration request let registrationRequest = provider.createCredentialRegistrationRequest( challenge: challenge, name: username, userID: userId ) // Optional configurations (tried these but no effect on "another device" option) registrationRequest.displayName = "Test Device" registrationRequest.userVerificationPreference = .required registrationRequest.attestationPreference = .none // Set up authorization controller let authController = ASAuthorizationController(authorizationRequests: [registrationRequest]) let delegate = PasskeyRegistrationDelegate(completion: completion) authController.delegate = delegate // Trigger the registration flow authController.performRequests(options: .preferImmediatelyAvailableCredentials)` 2. Observation from Authentication Flow (Working as Expected) During the Passkey authentication flow (not registration), I can successfully hide the "Use another device" option by specifying allowedCredentials in the ASAuthorizationPlatformPublicKeyCredentialAssertionRequest. Here’s a simplified example of that working code: let assertionRequest = provider.createCredentialAssertionRequest(challenge: challenge) assertionRequest.allowedCredentials = allowedCredentials After adding allowedCredentials, the system dialog no longer shows cross-device options—this is exactly the behavior I want for registration. 3. My Questions Is there a similar parameter to allowedCredentials (from authentication) that I can use during registration to hide the "Save to another device" option? Did I miss any configuration in the registration request (e.g., authenticatorAttachment or other properties) that forces the flow to use only the current device’s platform authenticator? Are there any system-level constraints or WebAuthn standards I’m overlooking that cause the "Save to another device" option to persist during registration? Any insights or code examples would be greatly appreciated!
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292
Oct ’25
New iOS-style App Groups Prevent App Submission
We have a macOS app that has a Photos Extension, which shares documents with the app via an app group container. Historically we used to have an iOS-style group identifier (group.${TeamIdentifier}${groupName}), because we were lead by the web interface in the developer portal to believe this to be the right way to name groups. Later with the first macOS 15 betas last year there was a bug with the operating system warning users, our app would access data from different apps, but it was our own app group container directory. Therefore we added a macOS-style group identifier (${TeamIdentifier}${groupName}) and wrote a migration of documents to the new group container directory. So basically we need to have access to these two app group containers for the foreseeable future. Now with the introduction of iOS-style group identifiers for macOS, Xcode Cloud no longer archives our app for TestFlight or AppStore, because it complains: ITMS-90286: Invalid code signing entitlements - Your application bundle’s signature contains code signing entitlements that aren’t supported on macOS. Specifically, the “[group.${TeamIdentifier}${groupName}, ${TeamIdentifier}${groupName}]” value for the com.apple.security.application-groups key in isn’t supported. This value should be a string or an array of strings, where each string is the “group” value or your Team ID, followed by a dot (“.”), followed by the group name. If you're using the “group” prefix, verify that the provisioning profile used to sign the app contains the com.apple.security.application-groups entitlement and its associated value(s). We have included the iOS-style group identifier in the provisioning profile, generated automatically, but can't do the same for the macOS-style group identifier, because the web interface only accepts identifiers starting with "group". How can we get Xcode Cloud to archive our app again using both group identifiers? Thanks in advance
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353
Mar ’25
Best Practice for Keychain Storage for a C++ Plugin in a Host App (Maya)?
Hi everyone, I'm developing a C++ plugin (.bundle) for a third-party host application (Autodesk Maya) on macOS, and I'm finalizing the design for our licensing system. The plugin is distributed outside the Mac App Store. My goal is to securely store a license key in the user's Keychain. After some research, my proposed implementation is as follows: On activation, store the license data in the user's login keychain as a Generic Password (kSecClassGenericPassword) using the SecItem APIs. To ensure the plugin can access the item when loaded by Maya, I will use a specific Keychain Access Group (e.g., MY_TEAM_ID.com.mywebsite). The final .bundle will be code-signed with our company's Developer ID certificate. The signature will include an entitlements file (.entitlements) that specifies the matching keychain-access-groups permission. My understanding is that this combination of a unique Keychain Access Group and a properly signed/entitled bundle is the key to getting reliable Keychain access. This should also correctly trigger the one-time user permission prompt on first use. Does this sound like the correct and most robust approach for this scenario? Are there any common pitfalls with a plugin's Keychain access from within a host app that I should be aware of? Thanks for any feedback!
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143
Jun ’25
Is there a way to hide the 'Save to another device' option during iOS WebAuthn registration?
Hello, I am currently implementing a biometric authentication registration flow using WebAuthn. I am using ASAuthorizationPlatformPublicKeyCredentialRegistrationRequest, and I would like to know if there is a way to hide the "Save to another device" option that appears during the registration process. Specifically, I want to guide users to save the passkey only locally on their device, without prompting them to save it to iCloud Keychain or another device. If there is a way to hide this option or if there is a recommended approach to achieve this, I would greatly appreciate your guidance. Also, if this is not possible due to iOS version or API limitations, I would be grateful if you could share any best practices for limiting user options in this scenario. If anyone has experienced a similar issue, your advice would be very helpful. Thank you in advance.
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1.1k
Oct ’25
Unit tests and persistent tokens
I'd like to implement unit tests that exercise keys made available via a persistent token interface. However, when attempting to list available tokens by passing kSecAttrAccessGroupToken as the kSecAttrAccessGroup to SecItemCopyMatching from a unit test, -34018 is returned. It succeeds without the kSecAttrAccessGroup, which makes sense given the unit test binary does not have com.apple.token Keychain Group. The Xcode UI indicates "Capabilities are not supported" for the unit test binary when attempting to add a Keychain Sharing capability to enable use of persistent tokens. This feels like a dead end but begs the question is there any way to implement unit tests to exercise a persistent token interface? It seems like the only path may be write unit tests that drive an independent app that handles the interactions with the persistent token.
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502
Feb ’25
ASAuthorizationPlatformPublicKeyCredentialAssertion.signature algorithm
Hello everyone. Hope this one finds you well) I have an issue with integrating a FIDO2 server with ASAuthorizationController. I have managed to register a user with passkey successfully, however when authenticating, the request for authentication response fails. The server can't validate signature field. I can see 2 possible causes for the issue: ASAuthorizationPlatformPublicKeyCredentialAssertion.rawAuthenticatorData contains invalid algorithm information (the server tries ES256, which ultimately fails with false response), or I have messed up Base64URL encoding for the signature property (which is unlikely, since all other fields also require Base64URL, and the server consumes them with no issues). So the question is, what encryption algorithm does ASAuthorizationController use? Maybe someone has other ideas regarding where to look into? Please help. Thanks)
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897
3w
DeviceCheck - Device Validation Endpoint not working
We have been having very high response times in device check device validation service (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicecheck/accessing-and-modifying-per-device-data#Create-the-payload-for-a-device-validation-request) since 17 July at 19:10hs GMT. The service information page says the service was running in green status but that isn't the case and we currenly have stop consuming it. Is it being looked at? Are you aware of this issue? Can you give us an estimate of when it should be working correctly?
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784
Jul ’25
Will Security Layer Affect AASA File Accessibility?
I’d like to confirm something regarding the hosting of the apple-app-site-association (AASA) file. We have a server that publicly hosts the AASA file and is accessible globally. However, this server sits behind an additional security layer (a security server/reverse proxy). My question is: Will this security layer affect Apple’s ability to access and validate the AASA file for Universal Links or App Clips? Are there specific requirements (e.g. headers, redirects, TLS versions, etc.) that we need to ensure the security server does not block or modify? Any guidance or best practices would be appreciated. Thanks!
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249
Jul ’25
Password AutoFill doesn't work - help needed
I have a project with a single app target that serves two environments, and two schemes, one for each env, using xcconfig files for defining environment-specific stuff. I'm trying to figure this out for months, so I've tried multiple approaches throughout this period: Have a single domain in "Associated domains" in Xcode, defined as webcredentials:X where X gets replaced using a value from xcconfig. Have two domain entries in "Associated domains" webcredentials:PROD_DOMAIN and webcredentials:STAGING_DOMAIN. Have a different order of domains Results are very interesting: whatever I do, whatever approach I take, password autofill works on staging, but doesn't work on production. I'm aware that we need to test production on Test Flight and AppStore builds. That's how we're testing it, and it's not working. Tested on multiple devices, on multiple networks (wifi + mobile data), in multiple countries.. you name it. The server side team has checked their implementation a dozen times; it's all configured properly, in the exact same way across environments (except bundle ID, ofc). We tried a couple websites for validating the apple-app-site-association file, and while all of those are focused on testing universal links, they all reported that the file is configured properly. Still, password autofill doesn't work. I prefer not to share my app's domains publicly here. Ideally I would contact Apple Developer Support directly, but they now require a test project for that, and since 'a test project' is not applicable to my issue, I'm posting here instead.
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559
Oct ’25
How to Restrict Passkey Authentication to FaceID or TouchID Only
Hi everyone, I'm looking for a way to configure Passkey on iOS so that authentication is only possible using FaceID or TouchID. Specifically, I want to disable the use of passcodes and QR codes for authentication. Additionally, is there a method to detect if the authentication was done using a passcode or QR code? Thanks for your help!
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543
Apr ’25