France: Issued EUR 8 million fine to Apple for failure to obtain user consent for displaying advertising identifiers

On 29 December 2022, the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) fined Apple Distribution International EUR 8 million for its violations of the French Data Protection Act. In its investigation, CNIL concluded that Apple failed to obtain user consent for writing and saving advertising identifiers used in its App Store. Additionally, CNIL pointed out that the users wishing to turn off the advertising targeting had to go through multiple steps to deactivate the advertising feature. Following the investigation, CNIL determined that Apple breached Article 82 of the Data Protection Act, which requires electronic communication service providers to obtain the user's consent before it "accesses or enters information in a user's terminal equipment."