An iPhone app designed to verify Pennsylvania mail-in ballots gets rejected by Apple

Pennsylvania is a swing state on this 12 months’s sophisticated election, and with the world at the moment experiencing a world pandemic, extra persons are mailing of their ballots than ever. As a consequence of this, a standard fear that persons are experiencing is that if their poll will arrive and be counted in time for the election outcomes. That’s exactly the rationale why one developer created an app referred to as Drive Turnout.

Drive Turnout is an app designed to help customers in validating that their very own or their beloved one’s ballots have been efficiently counted. All {that a} consumer would want is the actual voter’s title, date of delivery, and county for the app to confirm if that individual’s poll had but been counted. The app would do that by using publicly obtainable data through a Pennsylvania state web site.

Regardless of this app seeming to be comparatively easy and never out of the abnormal, the developer Ari Steinberg has come ahead at this time saying that Apple rejected the app from coming into the App Retailer. He was taken again by what he thought was a fairly odd rejection. He additionally expressed some frustration as a result of size of time it took the app to get rejected, one thing he mentioned took two weeks.

In response to Steinberg, Apple referenced certainly one of its pointers as the rationale for rejecting Drive Turnout. The rule of thumb reads as follows, “Apps that compile private data from any supply that isn’t straight from the consumer or with out the consumer’s express consent, even public databases, aren’t permitted on the App Retailer.”

Steinberg has mentioned that his purpose with the app was to make already publicly obtainable data extra simply accessible to individuals. He additionally said that he would fairly Apple have an open dialog about making such necessary data obtainable inside apps versus merely rejecting it.

Some extent that Steinberg made was that Apple’s personal tackle ebook clearly permits customers to import contact data for his or her pals with out their consent. This would appear to violate Apple’s personal pointers to some extent.

This all leads again to a standard grievance of Apple’s App Retailer approval course of that has come into public view this 12 months. Apple has been arguably inconsistent when imposing its pointers for approving apps, inflicting many builders to change into publicly upset and voice their opinions on the matter. Steinberg’s case makes it much more obvious that Apple must change into extra constant in imposing its pointers and dealing with builders earlier than rejections.

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