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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteWhen Apple released iOS 14.5 in April 2021, iPhone users began seeing a new question: whether an app could track them across other companies’ apps and websites. Facebook and Instagram had to ask because Apple made permission a condition of using that kind of tracking on the App Store.
Most early respondents refused. Flurry Analytics estimated that about 96% of U.S. users and roughly 88% worldwide opted out in the early rollout period. Those were third-party estimates from Flurry’s analytics network—not an official Apple census and not a count of people who rejected Facebook specifically.
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The short answer
iOS 14.5 began broad enforcement of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework. An app that wanted to link a person’s activity across other companies’ apps and websites for advertising, measurement or related purposes generally had to show Apple’s system prompt and receive permission. Access to Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) for covered tracking also required consent. Apple announced the policy in January 2021 (Apple’s announcement).
Choosing Ask App Not to Track restricted that covered cross-company tracking and the related advertising identifier access. It did not erase a Facebook account, stop all data collection, remove every personalized ad or make a user anonymous.
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What Apple changed in iOS 14.5
Before ATT
Before the change, apps could generally access the IDFA without first presenting a dedicated, system-level tracking request. The identifier helped advertising and measurement systems connect activity associated with the same device across different companies’ apps and websites.
After ATT
Under Apple’s rules, an app collecting data and sharing it with other companies to track a person across apps and websites had to use ATT. The app could request permission through Apple’s standardized prompt, offering Allow or Ask App Not to Track. Apple’s developer requirements describe the covered uses and IDFA rule (Apple developer documentation).
Apple also prohibited fingerprinting—deriving a unique identity from device characteristics—as a workaround for a denied permission (Apple’s developer guidance).
What “track” meant
In Apple’s framework, tracking was not simply watching everything someone did inside Facebook. It meant linking or sharing user or device data across apps and websites owned by different companies, including for:
- Advertising targeting and profile building
- Advertising or conversion measurement
- Sharing information with data brokers
- Using the IDFA for those covered purposes
Apple’s technical documentation explains the scope of ATT (AppTrackingTransparency documentation).
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Why Facebook and Instagram had to ask
Meta’s advertising business depended on connecting signals from websites and apps so advertisers could find audiences, attribute outcomes and optimize campaigns. Apple’s rule applied to any app doing covered tracking, not just Facebook. Facebook became the most visible example because of its scale, its dependence on advertising and its public opposition to the policy.
Meta’s implementation guidance said Facebook and Instagram would treat a device as opted out until the user granted permission through Apple’s prompt. Meta also displayed explanatory screens arguing that personalized advertising supported free services and helped small businesses. That screen was Meta’s message; the legally significant choice was made in Apple’s system dialog (Meta’s implementation guidance).
Apple’s case
Apple said people should know when information is shared across companies and should be able to make a meaningful choice. Its policy turned a previously background process into a visible yes-or-no decision.
Meta’s case
Meta argued that reducing cross-app data would make advertising less effective, hurt small businesses that relied on targeted campaigns and benefit Apple’s own ecosystem. The policy also shifted more control over access to mobile advertising data toward Apple as the platform owner—an interpretation of the competing incentives, rather than a claim that Apple’s stated privacy rationale was false.
How many people refused permission?
Flurry Analytics reported an early opt-out rate of approximately 96% in the United States and about 88% globally. Other early estimates put global opt-in at roughly 11% to 12%, implying that most eligible users declined.
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The important qualification is the denominator. Flurry measured users and apps in its own analytics network, which it described as spanning more than one million mobile applications and approximately two billion mobile devices per month. That reach did not make the ATT result a complete census of every iPhone owner. See Flurry’s methodology and early estimate (Flurry’s early report; Flurry’s continuing data).
Flurry’s rate was calculated among app users on eligible iOS versions who had made an allow-or-deny choice. A person could allow tracking for one app and deny it for another. The figures therefore depended on iOS adoption, whether an app displayed a prompt, geography, date, app category and the measurement company’s definitions. “About 96% of U.S. users in Flurry’s sample opted out in the early period” is defensible; “96% of all iPhone users refused Facebook” is not.
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| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Opt-out rate | The share of measured users who selected denial among those counted as making a choice. |
| Prompt exposure | Whether an app actually requested ATT permission and the user saw the system dialog. |
| iOS adoption | How many devices had installed iOS 14.5 or a later version that enforced ATT. |
| Per-app choice | A user could allow one app and deny another, so a person did not have one universal ATT status. |
What an opt-out changed for users
Selecting Ask App Not to Track limited the specific cross-app and cross-website tracking covered by Apple’s rules and prevented the app from using the IDFA for that covered purpose. It reduced the ability to connect behavior across companies for advertising and measurement.
- Less cross-company linkage of app and website activity
- Reduced access to the IDFA for covered advertising uses
- A clearer choice about a previously invisible data-sharing practice
Users still saw ads. Those ads could be less personalized, and some measurement could be less accurate, but ATT was not an ad blocker or a universal privacy switch.
What an opt-out did not change
ATT did not make someone impossible to identify or prevent Facebook from collecting information about activity inside its own services. Depending on the data, purpose, parties and applicable rules, Meta could still use:
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- Information a person entered directly into Facebook or Instagram
- Interactions and activity occurring within Meta’s services
- Account and other first-party signals collected under Meta’s policies
- Aggregated or privacy-preserving measurement
- Permitted first-party or server-side information supplied by advertisers
- Contextual signals that did not rely on covered cross-company tracking
Whether a particular data flow fell under ATT depended on its purpose and how data was linked or shared. Changing ATT permission also did not delete previously collected account or advertising data.
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Targeting
Advertisers lost some ability to connect a person’s activity across apps and websites using Apple’s identifier. Audience targeting on affected iPhones could therefore become smaller or less precise.
Attribution
It became harder to determine whether someone who saw or clicked an ad later installed an app, bought a product or completed another action elsewhere.
Reporting
Campaign reports for users who denied permission could be delayed, aggregated, modeled or incomplete instead of showing a deterministic user-level path.
Optimization
With fewer user-level conversion signals, advertising systems had less information with which to adjust bids, audiences and creative in real time. Academic analysis has examined ATT’s effects on attribution and performance marketing (academic discussion).
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Facebook advertising did not stop. The infrastructure became less deterministic and more dependent on aggregated, modeled and first-party signals.
What developers and advertisers used instead
Apple’s ecosystem offered privacy-preserving attribution approaches such as SKAdNetwork during the iOS 14.5-era transition. Meta also described an Aggregated Event Measurement system and other protocols intended to report conversions without restoring the same user-level visibility that ATT restricted. Meta said its rollout of revised measurement began with Apple’s general availability period, the week of April 26, 2021.
These alternatives could support campaign measurement, but they did not provide identical timing, granularity or optimization feedback to unrestricted cross-app tracking. Apple’s current documentation also identifies AdAttributionKit as a privacy-preserving attribution technology; that later technology should not be treated as the only mechanism available at the original launch (Apple’s documentation).
How to review the setting today
On current iOS versions, open Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking. From there you can change an individual app’s permission or turn off Allow Apps to Request to Track globally. If global requests are disabled, apps are treated as denied for the relevant permission and may not show the normal prompt.
This control is separate from Facebook’s privacy, advertising-preference and off-Facebook activity settings. Apple explains that permissions can be changed later in Settings (Apple’s user guidance).
Important edge cases
- You may never see a prompt if an app does not request covered tracking.
- A person can make different choices for different apps.
- Someone who previously disabled app requests can experience different prompt behavior.
- Regional privacy laws may add separate consent dialogs.
- ATT governs Apple platforms and app-distribution rules; it is not a universal law for every website or device.
- Android users were not governed by Apple’s ATT prompt, and browser sessions can use different tracking mechanisms from iOS apps.
Why the 96% headline needs care
The number captures the impact of making consent explicit, but it is not a permanent global rate, an Apple statistic or a Facebook-specific count. It describes an early measurement of eligible users in Flurry’s network. The broader, reliable conclusion is that when iPhone users were given a clear system-level choice about covered cross-company tracking, most early respondents declined it.
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