General:
Forums topic: Privacy & Security
Apple Platform Security support document
Developer > Security
Enabling enhanced security for your app documentation article
Creating enhanced security helper extensions documentation article
Security Audit Thoughts forums post
Cryptography:
Forums tags: Security, Apple CryptoKit
Security framework documentation
Apple CryptoKit framework documentation
Common Crypto man pages — For the full list of pages, run:
% man -k 3cc
For more information about man pages, see Reading UNIX Manual Pages.
On Cryptographic Key Formats forums post
SecItem attributes for keys forums post
CryptoCompatibility sample code
Keychain:
Forums tags: Security
Security > Keychain Items documentation
TN3137 On Mac keychain APIs and implementations
SecItem Fundamentals forums post
SecItem Pitfalls and Best Practices forums post
Investigating hard-to-reproduce keychain problems forums post
App ID Prefix Change and Keychain Access forums post
Smart cards and other secure tokens:
Forums tag: CryptoTokenKit
CryptoTokenKit framework documentation
Mac-specific resources:
Forums tags: Security Foundation, Security Interface
Security Foundation framework documentation
Security Interface framework documentation
BSD Privilege Escalation on macOS
Related:
Networking Resources — This covers high-level network security, including HTTPS and TLS.
Network Extension Resources — This covers low-level network security, including VPN and content filters.
Code Signing Resources
Notarisation Resources
Trusted Execution Resources — This includes Gatekeeper.
App Sandbox Resources
Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
General
RSS for tagPrioritize user privacy and data security in your app. Discuss best practices for data handling, user consent, and security measures to protect user information.
Selecting any option will automatically load the page
Post
Replies
Boosts
Views
Activity
General:
Forums topic: Privacy & Security
Privacy Resources
Security Resources
Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Hi Apple Developer Support,
I’m building a macOS app that acts as a default browser. I can confirm that I can set it correctly through System Settings → Default Web Browser.
The app implements ASWebAuthenticationSessionWebBrowserSessionHandling to intercept Single Sign-On (SSO) flows. To handle requests, it presents SSO pages in a WKWebView embedded in a window that this app creates and owns - this works perfectly for the initial login flow.
However, after I close my WebView window and then launch Safari or Chrome, any subsequent SSO requests open in the newly-launched browser instead of my custom browser, even though it remains selected as the default in System Settings.
I’d appreciate any insight on why the system “hands off” to Safari/Chrome in this scenario, and how I can keep my app consistently intercepting all ASWebAuthenticationSession requests.
Here are the steps that break down the issue:
Launch & confirm that the custom default browser app is the default browser in System Settings → Default Web Browser.
Trigger SSO (e.g., try to log in to Slack).
App’s WKWebView appears, and the SSO UI works end-to-end.
Close the WebView window (I have windowShouldClose callback where I cancel the pending session).
Manually launch Safari or Chrome.
Trigger SSO again. Observed behaviour: the login URL opens in Safari/Chrome.
I am using macOS 15.3.2
Hi Apple Devs,
For our app, we utilize passkeys for account creation (not MFA). This is mainly for user privacy, as there is 0 PII associated with passkey account creation, but it additionally also satisfies the 4.8: Login Services requirement for the App Store.
However, we're getting blocked in Apple Review. Because the AASA does not get fetched immediately upon app install, the reviewers are not able to create an account immediately via passkeys, and then they reject the build.
I'm optimistic I can mitigate the above. But even if we pass Apple Review, this is a pretty catastrophic issue for user security and experience. There are reports that 5% of users cannot create passkeys immediately (https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/756740). That is a nontrivial amount of users, and this large of an amount distorts how app developers design onboarding and authentication flows towards less secure experiences:
App developers are incentivized to not require MFA setup on account creation because requiring it causes significant churn, which is bad for user security.
If they continue with it anyways, for mitigation, developers are essentially forced to add in copy into their app saying something along the lines of "We have no ability to force Apple to fetch the config required to continue sign up, so try again in a few minutes, you'll just have to wait."
You can't even implement a fallback method. There's no way to check if the AASA is available before launching the ASAuthorizationController so you can't mitigate a portion of users encountering an error!!
Any app that wants to use the PRF extension to encrypt core functionality (again, good for user privacy) simply cannot exist because the app simply does not work for an unspecified amount of time for a nontrivial portion of users.
It feels like a. Apple should provide a syscall API that we can call to force SWCD to verify the AASA or b. implement a config based on package name for the app store such that the installation will immediately include a verified AASA from Apple's CDN. Flicking the config on would require talking with Apple. If this existed, this entire class of error would go away.
It feels pretty shocking that there isn't a mitigation in place for this already given that it incentivizes app developers to pursue strictly less secure and less private authentication practices.
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Authentication Services
Universal Links
Passkeys in iCloud Keychain
Hey everyone, I'm hitting a really frustrating issue with App Attest. My app was working perfectly with DCAppAttestService on October 12th, but starting October 13th it started failing with DCError Code 2 "Failed to fetch App UUID" at DCAppAttestController.m:153. The weird part is I didn't change any code - same implementation, same device, same everything.
I've tried switching between development and production entitlement modes, re-registered my device in the Developer Portal, created fresh provisioning profiles with App Attest capability, and verified that my App ID has App Attest enabled. DCAppAttestService.isSupported returns true, so the device supports it. Has anyone else run into this? This is blocking my production launch and I'm not sure if it's something on my end or an Apple infrastructure issue.
With the new ios 26 update, certain numbers will be filtered into other inboxes within imessage. What numbers are classified as "known", and will not be moved into these filters. Do they need to be a contact in your phone, or if a business texts you how will that be filtered?
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
I'm experiencing a strange issue where ASWebAuthenticationSession works perfectly when running from Xcode (both Debug and Release), but fails on TestFlight builds.
The setup:
iOS app using ASWebAuthenticationSession for OIDC login (Keycloak)
Custom URL scheme callback (myapp://)
prefersEphemeralWebBrowserSession = false
The issue:
When using iOS Keychain autofill (with Face ID/Touch ID or normal iphone pw, that auto-submits the form) -> works perfectly
When manually typing credentials and clicking the login button -> fails with white screen
When it fails, the form POST from Keycloak back to my server (/signin-oidc) never reaches the server at all. The authentication session just shows a white screen.
Reproduced on:
Multiple devices (iPhone 15 Pro, etc.)
iOS 18.x
Xcode 16.x
Multiple TestFlight testers confirmed same behavior
What I've tried:
Clearing Safari cookies/data
prefersEphemeralWebBrowserSession = true and false
Different SameSite cookie policies on server
Verified custom URL scheme is registered and works (testing myapp://test in Safari opens the app)
Why custom URL scheme instead of Universal Links:
We couldn't get Universal Links to trigger from a js redirect (window.location.href) within ASWebAuthenticationSession. Only custom URL schemes seemed to be intercepted. If there's a way to make Universal Links work in this context, without a manual user-interaction we'd be happy to try.
iOS Keychain autofill works
The only working path is iOS Keychain autofill that requires iphone-authentication and auto-submits the form. Any manual form submission fails, but only on TestFlight - not Xcode builds.
Has anyone encountered this or know a workaround?
Hello,
I’m planning to develop a custom referral-based attribution system for my app. The goal is to log the number of installs that come from unique referral links and then track subsequent in‑app analytics (for example, when a user reaches level 5 in a game). I’d also like to capture the user’s country to further segment these analytics.
I want to build this system myself—without relying on third‑party services (such as AppsFlyer or Branch) since I only need a few key data points and want to keep costs low. However, I’m aware of the privacy restrictions in iOS and want to ensure that my implementation complies with Apple’s guidelines.
Specifically, I would appreciate guidance on the following:
Permissible Signals:
Is it acceptable to log signals like IP address (or a suitably anonymized version), device model, and timestamp to help correlate the referral click to a successful install and subsequent in‑app events?
Are there any other recommended non‑PII signals that can be used to confirm a referral install without risking rejection during App Review?
Best Practices:
What are the best practices for handling and transmitting these signals (e.g., should IP addresses be truncated or hashed)?
How can I ensure that my system remains compliant with Apple’s App Tracking Transparency and other privacy guidelines?
I’d appreciate any insights or references to relevant documentation that might help me build this system without getting rejected by Apple.
Thank you in advance for your assistance!
Hi,
Xcode Instruments shows multiple Points of Interest with the information that the framework is not listed in my Privacy Manifest.
However, I have already included them in the Privacy Manifest under the privacy tracking domains.
I have this problem with every tracking domain i listed in the Privacy Manifest's Privacy Tracking Domains.
Did I make a mistake in my Privacy Manifest declaration?
Hi,
I am developing a Platform SSO in order to have integrated with our IdP, which I am also adapting to provide the right endpoints for Platform SSO.
I have a few questions about the implementation:
does the client-request-id need to be present on all requests? Is it unique per request, or requests that are bound together like those requesting a nonce and those who will use that nonce should use the same client-request-id?
I am not sure how the loginManager.presentRegistrationViewController works. I'd like to get the user to authenticate to my IdP before device registration. So I am not sure if I should provide my own Webview or something similar or if this method should do something for me;
My idea is to request user authentication once, save the state when performing device registration, so that I avoid asking for user authentication twice when performing user registration. Is this the right way to do it?
How does platform SSO handles tokens? If one application of my IdP requests the authentication on a common OIDC/OAuth2 flow, should I perform some sort of token exchange?
How about SAML? Platform SSO seems to be token-centric, but how does one handle SAML flows? Is it by using WebView as well?
Without developer mode, I was able to get Password AutoFill to work in my SwiftUI app with my local Vapor server using ngrok and adding the Associated Domains capability with the value webcredentials:....ngrok-free.app and the respective apple-app-site-association file on my local server in /.well-known/. (works on device, but not in the simulator).
However, if I use the developer mode (webcredentials:....ngrok-free.app?mode=developer) it only works halfway when running from Xcode: I get asked to save the password, but the saved passwords are not picked up, when I try to login again. Neither on device, nor in the simulator. If I remove the ?mode=developer it seems to work as expected.
Is this by design, or am I missing something?
var body: some View {
...
Section(header: Text("Email")) {
TextField("Email", text: $viewModel.credentials.username)
.textContentType(.username)
.autocapitalization(.none)
.keyboardType(.emailAddress)
}
Section(header: Text("Passwort")) {
SecureField("Passwort", text: $viewModel.credentials.password)
.textContentType(.password)
}
...
}
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
SwiftUI
Universal Links
Authentication Services
Autofill
I keep getting the following error when trying to run Passkey sign in on macOS.
Told not to present authorization sheet: Error Domain=com.apple.AuthenticationServicesCore.AuthorizationError Code=1 "(null)"
ASAuthorizationController credential request failed with error: Error Domain=com.apple.AuthenticationServices.AuthorizationError Code=1004 "(null)"
This is the specific error.
Application with identifier a is not associated with domain b
I have config the apple-app-site-association link and use ?mode=developer
Could there be any reason for this?
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
macOS
Objective-C
Authentication Services
Passkeys in iCloud Keychain
Hello,
I am working on a script to update an application which bundle ID changed. Only the bundle ID was modified; all other aspects remain unchanged.
This application requires access to "Screen & System Audio Recording" permissions, which are currently granted to the old bundle ID.
The script performs the following steps:
launchctl bootout gui/$(id -u) /Library/LaunchAgents/com.my_agent_1.plist
pkgutil --forget com.my_agent_1
tccutil reset All com.my_agent_1
rm /Library/LaunchAgents/com.my_agent_1.plist
rm -rf </path/to/com_my_agent_1>
installer -dumplog -allowUntrusted -pkg </path/to/com_my_agent_2.pkg> -target /
...
When running steps #1-6 without a restart between steps #5 and #6, the old bundle ID (com.my_agent_1) remains visible in TCC.db (verified via SQL queries).
Looks like this is the reason why "com.my_agent_2" is not automatically added to the permission list (requiring manual add).
Moreover, "tccutil reset All com.my_agent_1" does not work anymore, the error:
tccutil: No such bundle identifier "com.my_agent_1": The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -10814.)
Is there any way to completely clear the "Privacy & Security" permissions without requiring a system restart?
Thank you a lot for your help in advance!
I am trying to integrate those into my app, stuck on it would not transfer to view that inside app, can someone help?
Scott
we develop extension "Autofill Credential Provider" function for passkey.
1.first step registe passkey
2.second step authenticate with passkey
step 1 & step 2 has finished and run success with provideCredentialWithoutUserInteraction.
But we want to prepare our interface for use to input password and select passkey what the want. however the func prepareInterfaceToProvideCredential in ASCredentialProviderViewController does call? what i missed? how can i do it?
When presenting a cookie banner for GDPR purposes, should ATT precede the cookie banner?
It seems that showing a Cookie Banner and then showing the ATT permission prompt afterwards (if a user elects to allow cookies/tracking) would be more appropriate.
Related question: Should the “Allow Tracking” toggle for an app in system settings serve as a master switch for any granular tracking that might be managed by a 3rd party Consent Management Platform?
If ATT is intended to serve as a master switch for tracking consent, if the ATT prompt is presented before a cookie banner, should the banner even appear if a user declines tracking consent?
I’m not finding any good resources that describe this flow in detail and I’m seeing implementations all over the place on this.
Help!
Thanks!!!
this is my monitor image that shows DeviceCheck api responding very slowly.
We have a crash on DCDevice.current.isSupported
We want to try to make a serial queue to generate tokens but the side effect would be the same token would be used on multiple server API requests that are made within a few ms of each other?
Is this safe or will the Apple server immediately reject the same token being reused?
Can you share how long tokens are safe to use for?
Here is the code we want to try
final actor DeviceTokenController: NSObject {
static var shared: DeviceTokenController = .init()
private var tokenGenerationTask: Task<Data?, Never>?
var ephemeralDeviceToken: Data? {
get async {
// Re-using the token for short periods of time
if let existingTask = tokenGenerationTask {
return await existingTask.value
}
let task = Task<Data?, Never> {
guard DCDevice.current.isSupported else { return nil }
do {
return try await DCDevice.current.generateToken()
} catch {
Log("Failed to generate ephemeral device token", error)
return nil
}
}
tokenGenerationTask = task
let result = await task.value
tokenGenerationTask = nil
return result
}
}
}
We’ve identified an issue in our app where, upon clicking the "Call Customer Center" button, users are unexpectedly shown a logo and message option on a native pop-up window.
However, this wasn't the case before, and it should only display a phone number to dial, which was given inside our code.
This is incorrect and misleading for our users, as:
We are a Canadian-based service and have no affiliation with US messaging chat.
The messaging feature was never enabled or intended for our app.
Our app should only initiate a phone call to our customer support center — no messages or branding from third parties should appear
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Hello, I'm receiving an unknown error instead of the excluded credentials error when using the "Save on another device" option for Passkey creation.
When creating the ASAuthorizationPlatformPublicKeyCredentialProvider request to pass to the ASAuthorizationController. The excludedCredentials property is used to add a list of credentials to exclude in the registration process. This is to prevent duplicate passkeys from being created if one already exists for the user.
When trying to create a duplicate passkey using the same device, the ASAuthorizationControllerDelegate method authorizationController(controller, didCompleteWithError:) is called. The error received has localized description “At least one credential matches an entry of the excludeCredentials list in the platform attached authenticator."
When trying to create a duplicate passkey using the “Save on another device” option. The delegate method is called, but the error received has code 1000 ("com.apple.AuthenticationServices.AuthorizationError" - code: 1000). Which maps to the unknown error case in ASAuthorization error type.
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Passkeys in iCloud Keychain
Authentication Services
I added a feature to my app that retrieves only app settings (no personal data) from my API hosted on Cloudflare Workers. The app does not send, collect, track, or share any user data, and I do not store or process any personal information.
Technical details such as IP address, user agent, and device information may be automatically transmitted as part of the internet protocol when the request is made, but my app does not log or use them. Cloudflare may collect this information.
Question: Does this count as “data collection” for App Store Connect purposes, or can I select “No Data Collected”?