Privacy & Security3 min read
App Store privacy labels explained: what "Data Not Linked to You" really means
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Data used to track you, linked to you, not linked to you, not collected: what the App Store labels and Google Play Data safety actually say — and how our own apps compare.
Every app on the App Store has a "App Privacy" section, and every app on Google Play has a "Data safety" section. Both are filled in by the developer, and both use wording that is easy to misread. Here is what the labels actually mean — with our own apps as examples.
The four App Store labels
Since December 2020, developers must describe their data practices on the App Store. Every data type an app collects falls under one of these headings:
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| Data Used to Track You | Data combined with data from other companies' apps or websites for targeted advertising, or shared with data brokers |
| Data Linked to You | Data tied to your identity — an account, an email, a device identifier used as a user ID |
| Data Not Linked to You | Data collected without being tied to who you are, such as anonymous crash reports |
| Data Not Collected | The developer collects nothing from the app |
Tracking also requires your permission: since iOS 14.5, an app must ask through the App Tracking Transparency prompt before it tracks you across other companies' apps and websites.
What "collected" covers
Apple groups data into types such as contact info, location, identifiers, purchases, usage data and diagnostics. Usage data means things like which screens you open; diagnostics means crash logs and performance data; identifiers can be a user ID or a device ID; purchases means purchase history, for example which subscription you bought.
How our apps compare
| App | What the label says |
|---|---|
| Pingler, ColorsGen | Data Not Collected |
| AssetsGen, Ruble, Block Checker, Obozrevatel | Usage data and diagnostics, not linked to you |
| VPN Russia | Identifiers, purchases, usage data and diagnostics, not linked to you |
None of our apps uses data to track you, and none of them asks for your name, email or phone number. VPN Russia needs an installation identifier and the status of your subscription to provide the service; the others collect only anonymous statistics and crash reports — or nothing at all.
Google Play's Data safety
Google Play introduced its Data safety section in 2022. It covers similar ground with different words:
- Data collected and data shared with third parties are listed separately;
- each type is marked as required or optional, and whether it is processed ephemerally;
- developers state whether data is encrypted in transit and whether you can request deletion.
How to read labels critically
- Labels are self-reported. Apple and Google do not audit every app, so the privacy policy and the developer's reputation still matter.
- "Not linked to you" is a promise about how data is handled, not a technical impossibility — check whether the app has accounts at all.
- An empty label is not automatically better: an app that collects anonymous crash reports and fixes bugs quickly may serve you better than one that knows nothing.
- Compare the label with the permissions the app asks for. A flashlight that wants your contacts deserves a second look.
Tip
Each of our apps links its full privacy policy from the store page. Ours live under Docs at stable addresses, with a history of every version.