Apple Class Action Lawsuit Claims Safari Users Are Tracked Despite Advertised Privacy Protections

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Apple has been hit with a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges the tech giant has misleadingly represented the level of privacy protection its Safari web browser provides.

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The 26-page privacy lawsuit claims that although Apple represents its proprietary Safari web browser as being equipped with “industry-leading privacy protection technology,” including features that prevent third parties from tracking individual users across websites and browsing sessions, the browser in reality transmits “enormous amounts” of user information to third parties through a tracking mechanism known as “fingerprinting.”

The filing conveys that fingerprinting allows websites and advertisers to track individual users by collecting pieces of data sent from their web browsers—including the type of device and operating system being used, downloaded software, default language settings, time zone, display settings and more—and combining them to create a unique identifier that is consistent from website to website.

Although Apple advertises that Safari 26’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention, Private Browsing and Privacy Report features protect users from being identified and tracked, including through fingerprinting, the lawsuit says these privacy claims are “illusory.” First, the case claims Safari’s default settings “provide no defenses” against the most precise kind of fingerprinting and that users must find and make changes to their settings to provide any kind of fingerprinting protection.

Moreover, the lawsuit says Safari users are “lull[ed] into a false sense of security” by Safari’s Privacy Report, which purportedly shows users a list of trackers that were blocked on the websites they visit. According to the lawsuit, the report does not display well-known fingerprinting scripts, such as those deployed by Adobe, detected in default browsing mode.

The case goes on to claim that tracking scripts are successfully loaded and executed even in Safari’s Private Browsing sessions, contrary to Apple’s privacy claims. For instance, when users visit a site running the Adobe script using Private Browsing, the script transmits unique identifiers that allow individual users to be tracked across multiple sites, the suit alleges.

The lawsuit stresses that fingerprinting can be used not just to identify individual devices but to infer specific user demographic information, such as gender, age, income level and race.

“The ramifications of fingerprinting are greater than users merely receiving targeted ads; when web browser attributes are used to infer demographic information, users are at risk of targeted information campaigns,” the suit emphasizes.

The lawsuit notes that the information collected through fingerprinting is “extremely lucrative” for advertising purposes, claiming Safari users have had their digital fingerprints monetized without their consent and to Apple’s benefit.

The Safari class action lawsuit seeks to cover all United States residents who purchased an Apple device with the Safari web browser pre-installed.

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