Google has quietly added app privacy labels to its Gmail app today, marking the first of its major apps to receive the privacy details alongside YouTube.
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While app privacy information has been added to Gmail, Google has done so on the server side and has yet to release an update for the Gmail app. It’s been two months since the Gmail app last saw an update.
Earlier in February, the Gmail app displayed warnings that the app was outdated given that it has been so long since new security features were added, but Google eliminated those messages without pushing an update to the app.
Apple has been applying app privacy labels since December and Google is slow to support this feature. Google said in early January that it would add privacy data to its app catalog “this week or next week,” but by January 20, most apps still hadn’t been updated with app privacy.
Google has since added App Privacy labels to apps like YouTube and some of its smaller apps, but of major apps like Google Search, Google Photos and Google Maps, Gmail is the first to get the new labels.
There is nothing hugely unexpected in the privacy data of the Gmail app, with Google listing location, user ID and usage data as information shared with third party advertisers. Purchases, location, contact information, user content, search history, IDs and usage data are used for analysis purposes, product personalization and app functionality.
While most Google apps have been without an update for months and still need to be updated, apps like Google Translate, Google Tasks, YouTube Music, and YouTube TV have been updated with new content and bug fixes. However, these apps were quietly updated with App Privacy labels before updating their content.
Now that Gmail has app privacy labels, we may soon see the information become available for other Google apps and Google can resume the regular updates offered for iOS apps before Apple implemented the new rules.