Google’s plan to limit data tracking on its Chrome browser has been extended to cover apps on its Android-based smartphones.

Its so-called Privacy Sandbox project aims to curb the amount of user data that advertisers can gather.

Rival Apple now forces app developers to ask permission from users before tracking them.

The news will be a blow to firms like Meta, which rely on putting their code on apps to track consumer behaviour.

Meta said this month that Apple’s changes would cost it $10bn (£7.3bn) this year. Google’s Android operating system is used by about 85% of smartphone owners worldwide.

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Third-party cookies, which use people’s browsing history to target adverts, will be phased out on Google’s Chrome browser by 2023.

In a blog, Google said it was now extending what it calls its Privacy Sandbox to Android apps, and working on solutions that will limit sharing users’ data and “operate without cross app identifiers, including advertising ID”.

These identifiers are tied to smartphones and are used by apps to collect information. Google said that it will keep them in place for at least two years, while it works “with the industry” on a new system.

“We’re also exploring technologies that reduce the potential for covert data collection, including safer ways for apps to integrate with advertising SDK (software developer kits),” it added.

The tech giant did not detail how it plans to do this.

Apple decided in April last year that app developers had to explicitly ask for permission from users to use IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers). Data from advertising company Flurry Analytics, and published by Apple, suggests that US users are choosing to opt out of tracking 96% of the time.

Google’s blog did not name Apple, but referred instead to “other platforms” which it said “have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers”.

“We believe that – without first providing a privacy-preserving alternative path – such approaches can be ineffective,” it added.

Google, unlike Apple, relies on advertising revenue.

Google’s attempts to create alternatives to third party cookies on its Chrome browser have not gone entirely smoothly.

Its first proposal -a system called Federated Learning of Cohorts (Floc) – was disliked by privacy campaigners and advertisers alike.

Floc aimed to disguise users’ individual identities by assigning them to a group with similar browsing histories.

Real-time bidding
Its successor, Topics, was announced recently and aims instead to group users in topic clusters selected out of about 350 categories such as fitness or travel. When someone visits a website, Topics will show the site and its advertising partners three of their interests from the previous three weeks.

The Competitions Market Authority has been scrutinising Google’s transition to more privacy-focused systems and said of its plans to extend them to Android apps: “We will continue to monitor this closely and engage with Google on the nature and detail of its proposals.”

The average app includes at least six third-party trackers that are there solely to collect and share online data, according to a report commissioned by Apple last year.

And any one data broker is estimated to have data on up to 700 million consumers, according to research firm Cracked Lab.

Regulators, such as the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, are investigating the advertising ecosystem, especially the way ads are sold – known as real-time bidding – which automatically places billions of online adverts on web pages and apps every day.

Apple plans to introduce a number of changes to make it harder to misuse AirTags to track someone.

The button-sized devices are designed to work with Apple’s ‘Find My’ network to locate lost items.

The company said its changes to the device will make suspicious tags easier to find, and alert users earlier that an AirTag may be travelling with them.

In January, a number of women told the BBC they had been followed using AirTags.

Apple launched AirTags in April last year. The small, circular devices can be attached to luggage or keys – anything you could lose.

But the devices can be misused to track people by being hidden in a car, or on a personal item such as a bag.

As part of the changes to make misuse harder, Apple said every user setting up their AirTag for the first time will see a message warning that using the device to track people without consent is a crime in many regions around the world.

Currently, iPhone users (and Android users who download an app) receive “unwanted tracking” alerts if an unknown AirTag moves with them.

Apple announced that people will be alerted earlier that an unknown AirTag is travelling with them.

And when people are warned of “unwanted tracking” by an AirTag, users of iPhone 11, iPhone 12, and iPhone 13 devices will be able to use “precision finding”, to see the distance and direction to an unknown AirTag when it is in range. Previously only the owner of the AirTag could do this.

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Currently iOS users can send an unwanted tracking alert to make the suspect AirTag play tones and Apple has said tags will use louder tones in the future to make the tag easier to locate.

The company said it will also add to a feature that makes an AirTag that hasn’t been with the person who registered it for an extended period of time, play a sound when moved.

In theory this could reveal the presence of an AirTag to a stalking victim, but recent reports revealed that AirTags with the internal speakers deactivated had been listed for sale online.

To counter this, when the sound is triggered and the AirTag is detected moving with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, an alert will also appear on that device.

Apple also said it will also update its support article on unwanted tracking with additional information and resources.

Apple AirTags are incredibly good at finding things. They can track your items down to 0.1 feet.

But that accuracy means that, in the wrong hands, they can be used as sophisticated tracking tools.

This isn’t theoretical, as the BBC reported last month, there’s evidence that people are using AirTags to follow people.

The AirTags themselves are relatively new, and it’s clear that Apple hasn’t yet worked out how best to protect people.

For example, it took six months after AirTag’s launch for the company to bring out an app that would alert Android users to an unwanted AirTag.

The new updates that Apple plans to come out later this year – precision finding and AirTags that emit louder noises – are what campaigners have been calling for.

But with these iterative updates, there will be questions over whether Apple launched the product too early.

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Apple said it designed “products to provide a great experience, but also with safety and privacy in mind”, adding that it was “committed to listening to feedback and innovating to make improvements that continue to guard against unwanted tracking”.

It also noted that “based on our knowledge and on discussions with law enforcement, incidents of AirTag misuse are rare; however, each instance is one too many”.