Privacy and security are not the same thing, although they are related. The privacy is that the data remains yours and is not shared or transmitted without your knowledge. Security is about keeping your computer or device from being hacked and infected.
Apple has created a system called Gatekeeper, which is designed to ensure that only secure software runs on your Mac.
Unfortunately, the makers of Gatekeeper used standard Internet protocols to implement this security feature, meaning they chose to send data without encryption.
Not only is data sent unencrypted, but Gatekeeper intentionally bypasses VPNs, which means you can't hide your activity even if you try too hard.
It is difficult to say how many users it affects, but it is possible over 100 million. Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that there were more than 100 million active Macs worldwide at the end of 2018. Apple sold nearly 18 million Macs in 2019, and possibly more than that in 2020, as laptop sales increased due to growth of work from home. All Mac owners running Mac OS X Catalina (released in 2019) or later use Gatekeeper, whether they know it or not.
Το περιεχόμενο της διαρροής απορρήτου δεν είναι ιδιαίτερα τρομερό: δεν είναι το όνομά σας, οι κωδικοί πρόσβασης, οι credit cards, τα βιομετρικά data or something similar. It's a constant window into your daily behavior that most Mac users don't know exists.
In the US, it is illegal for Apple to keep your data private from the government if the government requests it. The US government doesn't ask for them very often: Apple's transparency report shows that from July to December 2019, the US asked Apple for data on its customers 5.271 times. They have not been shared yet requests of 2020.
In addition, Apple has promised to launch a new encryption protocol for authentication checks and a new arrangement for customers so that they can be exempt from Gatekeeper security protections.
