Tell HN: Reminder that you still can't delete keychain data of iOS apps

If you delete an iOS app (iOS 17 too), not all its data is gone. Keychain data survives re-installation. To delete the app completely, you have to reset your phone (or have a Jailbreak and manually reset the keychain). If you know alternative methods, please let me know.

Not sure what happens if iCloud Keychain Sync is on too. Might retain the data forever.

I think that's terrible, since apps can use it to track you. Also two apps from the same company (say, Whatsapp and Instagram) can share the undeleteable keychain and track you across apps in that way. (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/keychain_services/keychain_items/sharing_access_to_keychain_items_among_a_collection_of_apps/)

Apple introduced DeviceCheck with 2 bits of identifying data across installs (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicecheck), but developers can still happily use the keychain for their tracking.

Apple wanted to remove the persistent keychain in iOS 10.3 Beta 2 (https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/72271) but backed out apparently.

This is a reminder that Apple isn't as committed to privacy as it seems (at least I was blinded by it) and that you don't control what you can do and what happens on the device. (See also my other post today about iCloud Password feature that turns on by itself https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38645121).

Sorry, needed to vent about that today. Perhaps someone cares. I don't know how good Android is with that nowadays and maybe need to look into iOS Jailbreaks again, or F-Droid. I don't know.

Sources: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/441112/how-can-i-remove-keychain-data-from-ios and https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/441112/how-can-i-remove-keychain-data-from-ios/444912#444912