The Apple Developer Program & Privacy
The Apple Developer Program is designed to help you create and distribute apps while protecting your information.
- We collect your personal data to create and maintain your developer account.
- When you provide your government identification information or a selfie, we and our identity verification service providers use it to verify your identity and prevent fraud.
- To help identify and prevent fraud, information about your device, including device use patterns, are evaluated on your device and a score based on that information is sent to Apple.
- We may also collect and use your bank account and tax information to pay you, identify and prevent fraud, and comply with legal requirements.
Apple is committed to the privacy and security of your information. We collect only the data needed to enable developers to be successful on Apple platforms and to provide a safe experience for users. When we collect data, we believe it’s important for you to know what we are collecting and why we need it to support you as an Apple developer. Here are some examples of the types of information we may collect and use.
Enrollment in the Apple Developer Program
When you enroll in the Apple Developer Program, Apple uses information associated with your Apple Account, including your name, email address, age, phone number, preferred language, and country or region, to create and maintain your developer account and provide you with features of the Apple Developer Program. This may include providing you with access to the Apple Developer website, events, and content, and to send you emails and notifications.
Identity Verification
In certain cases, such as enrolling in the Apple Developer Program, renewing your membership, or accepting the Account Holder role from an existing member, you may be asked to provide your government identification number, images of your photo ID, such as an identification card, driver’s license, or passport, and/or a selfie for identity verification purposes, depending on the requirements where you are located. Apple will also collect information about the device you use to apply to the Apple Developer Program and the security settings you’ve enabled for your Apple Account. Your device may also use device use patterns (for example, percent of time device is in motion, approximate number of calls per week, Maps history) to help identify fraud. The information is evaluated by your device and a score based on that information is shared with Apple.
Apple and its identity verification service providers will use this information only to verify your identify and prevent fraud on behalf of Apple. Apple requires its service providers to delete this information as soon as it is no longer needed and retention is not required by law. If you provide images of your government ID, Apple’s identity verification service providers will check its authenticity and pull your name and address and the document ID number for verification and fraud prevention purposes. Apple’s identity verification service providers will keep the image for a short period of time to complete the identity verification, after which the image will be deleted. When you submit identity or other documents through App Store Connect or AppleCare in order to verify your developer account, Apple retains those documents for up to 90 days. If you do not want to provide your government ID, and it is not required by law, you may contact Apple for an alternative method of identity verification at developer.apple.com/contact.
Display of Developer Contact and Business Information
Apple may display certain contact information, such as your business name, address, or Post Office box, email address, phone number, or business registration number (such as a DUNS or Universal Social Credit Identifier), on your app product page in certain regions where required by local law. You may update this display contact information in App Store Connect, or by contacting Apple.
Invitation to Join a Developer Team
Another developer may provide Apple your email address to invite you to join their development team in the Apple Developer Program. If you accept the invitation, your Apple Account will be associated with the team.
Payments
In order to receive payments from Apple, you will need to provide bank account information and complete tax and related forms. You can update these at any time in the Agreements, Tax, and Banking section of App Store Connect. Apple will use this data to pay you, to identify and prevent fraud, and to comply with applicable law.
Events
If you apply to attend an event, you must apply using the Apple Account associated with your Apple Developer Program membership. Your account information will be used in accordance with the event’s selection process to select participants and to register you for the event, if selected. To attend certain events, you may be asked to present a valid government ID or passport in order to verify your identity and for event security.
Notifications
When you enable notifications for the Developer app, we may send you information about topics such as the Developer Program, the Worldwide Developer Conference, and Tech Talks and Labs. You can adjust your notification preferences at any time in Developer app Settings. On the Developer app on your iOS device, tap the Account tab, then tap Notifications. On Mac, go to Developer > Settings > Notifications.
Purchases
We compute a device trust score on your device when you attempt a purchase using information about how you use your device, including the approximate number of phone calls or emails you send and receive. The submission is designed so Apple cannot learn the underlying values on your device. The score is stored for a fixed time on our servers.
Analytics
If you opt in to sending app usage information, Apple will collect information about how you use the Developer app, including the pages you view and features with which you interact. This information is used to help Apple improve the Developer app. None of the collected information identifies you personally. You may choose to disable the sharing of this information at any time. To do so on your iOS device, go to Settings > Developer > Diagnostics & Usage and then tap to turn off Automatically Send. On your visionOS device, go to Settings > Apps > Developer > Diagnostics & Usage and then tap to turn off Automatically Send. In the Developer app on Mac, go to Settings > General, then deselect “Automatically send diagnostics and usage”.
Applicable Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data
We process your personal data in the Apple Developer Program generally for performance of your contract with Apple, as necessary for providing the service, and to comply with our legal obligations. Where consent is the appropriate legal basis, we seek it in accordance with applicable local law.
Where applicable local law provides, we process personal data as necessary for purposes of our legitimate interests or those of a third party, in order to:
- Verify your identity
- Send you communications and invitations to join developer teams
- Improve and optimize the service for you and others
- Prevent fraud and other malicious activity
The data used includes:
- Your identification information, such as your government identification number, name, and address
- Details about your device and account
- Your bank account information
- The device trust score
Retention
We retain personal data associated with your Apple Developer Program membership only for so long as you maintain an Apple Account. Your account information is removed upon your request that your account be deleted, unless we are required to retain it under applicable law. If you have questions or concerns about how your personal data is used as it relates to the Apple Developer Program, or would like to reach out to our Data Protection Officer, you can contact us at dpo@apple.com.
At all times, information collected by Apple will be treated in accordance with Apple’s Privacy Policy, which can be found at www.apple.com/privacy.