Apple, Inc.
Headquartered in the United States, Apple manufactures computers, smartphones, and other devices, and produces the iOS operating system, software, and the App Store. As of early 2025, Apple reported over 2.35 billion active devices worldwide. While Apple’s hardware and products remain a core revenue driver, its services sector, boosted by AI advancements, is expanding rapidly.
Apple maintained the same score as in the last RDR evaluation, but rose two spots to fourth place, tying with Kakao, a South Korea-based internet company. Aligning with the tech industry's focus on generative AI, Apple has significantly increased its own AI efforts, unveiling Apple Intelligence in October 2024.
Apple disclosed that it conducts some privacy impact assessments, including reviews of its algorithmic systems, but it did not share further details. The company remained largely opaque about its use of algorithms. It also failed to provide effective information on how its content curation algorithms work, nor did it publish any overarching policies for the development and deployment of algorithmic systems across its platforms.
In 2023, Apple released its first-ever App Store Transparency Report, detailing the number of apps reviewed and rejected. The report also released data concerning apps removed from the store due to Apple’s own policy guidelines and government demands, breaking down the information into specific categories, including by country. This move followed an agreement between the company and a coalition of shareholders to enhance transparency around its app store.
Apple provided the most details among the 14 assessed companies about the options users have to control their data, including App Tracking Transparency (ATT), which is aimed at empowering users to manage how third-party advertisers collect and use their data. However, ATT's implementation has sparked antitrust litigation in France and Germany, where concerns have been raised about Apple's market dominance and its consequences for third-party developers.
Apple continued to post strong advertising sales and its new advertising service on Apple News—Apple directly sells ad space on its news platform. However, its transparency regarding advertising content and targeting remained insufficient, especially within iMessage and iCloud. Notably, Apple, like many of the assessed companies, failed to disclose data on advertising rules and enforcement, particularly restricted advertisements, leaving its advertising moderation practices unclear.
Apple led all evaluated companies in privacy policy disclosures, particularly in its transparency regarding data and communications security. However, the company still faced an eavesdropping lawsuit concerning Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant. Apple users can enable Advanced Data Protection on iCloud, which is a type of end-to-end encryption. However, Apple's decision to remove this protection, its highest-level security tool, for customers in the UK following a demand from their government marked an unprecedented step that could set the ground for acquiescence to similar government demands in the U.S. and other regions.
Apple's attitude toward the war in Gaza, in stark contrast to its response to the Ukraine war, led to the firing of employees for wearing pro-Palestinian attire. This action sparked internal protests during a September 2024 product launch, which highlighted employee dissent over Apple's perceived censorship and lack of neutrality.
The 2025 RDR Index: Big Tech Edition covers policies that were active on August 1, 2024. Policies that came into effect after August 1, 2024, were not evaluated for this benchmark.
Scores reflect the average score across the services we evaluated, with each service weighted equally.
We rank companies on their governance, and on their policies and practices affecting freedom of expression and privacy.
Apple made no improvements to its governance procedures. Despite its stated commitment to human rights (G1), including freedom of expression, the company provided limited information on its human rights due diligence and impact assessments (G4).[1] The company also failed to disclose the process for users to appeal the removal or rejection of their content in the App Store (G6b).
Among U.S. companies, Apple disclosed only slightly more information than Amazon regarding its policies and practices for protecting users' freedom of expression, despite publishing a new yearly App Store Transparency Report (F4). The company remained unclear about its algorithmic systems and how they are used to curate content for users (F12). It also ceased publishing its Advertising Policies and App Store Review Guidelines in Spanish (F1b), decreasing its transparency and, by extension, its score in this category.
Apple’s privacy score remained the same, but its ranking among its peers improved as it gained first place in this year’s assessment. The company stood out primarily due to its transparent privacy policies, particularly its commitment to data encryption (P16) and empowering users with control over specific types of data collection (P7). However, it lacked transparency on how it collects and infers (P3) user data or how it handles third-party information (P9). It also limited its disclosures regarding how it monitors employee access to user information (P13).
[1] In November 2024, the EU released the risk assessment reports submitted by very large online platforms, including Apple, as required by the DSA. However, the reports were published after the policy cut-off date and were therefore not considered in this assessment.