Tech Giant Apple is facing a class action lawsuit because of its alleged misleading user privacy standards and the way in which they track users and their data.

For years Apple has been outspoken about user privacy and the lengths they're willing to go to enable users to have control over their data. Apple has even gone so far as targeting other tech giants, namely Facebook, about their data collection practices.

This latest lawsuit, which was filed In California Federal Court, challenges Apple’s claims about its data collection practices and overall user privacy rights.

Online tech and science outlet Gizmodo details the allegations in the lawsuit which came just days after Gizmodo released an exclusive report that researched how iPhone apps track and collect data. The report detailed that Apple iOS collects and tracks data regardless of whether a user sets their device’s privacy settings to “on” or “off.”

The lawsuit explains that “Apple records, tracks, collects and monetizes analytics data—including browsing history and activity information—regardless of what safeguards or “privacy settings” consumers undertake to protect their privacy. Even when consumers follow Apple’s own instructions and turn off “Allow Apps to Request to Track” and/or “Share Analytics” on their privacy controls, Apple nevertheless continues to record consumers’ app usage, app browsing communications, and personal information in its proprietary Apple apps, including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, Books, and Stocks.”

The disconnect between what Apple says its privacy standards are and where those standards actually lie was first spotted by independent researchers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakr from the software company Mysk. According to the two researchers, iOS is able to record “every tap you make” when navigating the Apple Store. The data collected allegedly includes which apps users are downloading, the kind of phone they are using, and even their keyboard languages and device screen resolution.

Gizmodo explains that the data collected is quite detailed and includes a significant amount of information, especially when a user is on one of Apple’s many proprietary apps. For example, if a user is operating Apple's Stock app, Apple will be able to collect data including what stocks a user searches for, when they searched for them, and even articles they read while navigating the app.

All this data is collected by Apple even when users use the “Turn off the Data Collection” feature on their devices. In the settings option, users who have selected the option “Disable the Sharing of Device Analytics All Together” still have their data collected and shared with Apple.

The two researchers conducted their investigation on select iPhones including a jailbroken iPhone running iOS 14.6, and a non-jailbroken iPhone running the latest update, iOS 16.

According to the lawsuit, Apple is in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act. Under this act, it is illegal for conversations and other forms of communication to be intentionally recorded or collected without the consent of all parties involved.

The heart of the lawsuit is the claim that Apple knowingly misled consumers into thinking they could turn off data analytics tracking and collection when in reality, the company still collected such data. Apple settings features including "Allow Apps to Request to Track" and "Share Analytics” give Apple users the impression that they have some control over how their data is collected and used when recent research indicates otherwise.

The lawsuit argues that Apple’s operation in such a manner was “out of line with standard industry practices.”

The lawsuit also points out that Apple has long since built its reputation on valuing user privacy. “Apple emblazoned 40-foot billboards of the iPhone with the simple slogan ‘Privacy, that's the iPhone.’ and ran the ads across the world for months,” the complaint reads.

Both the researchers at Mysk and Gizmodo share the sentiment that Apple, one of the world's biggest tech giants, is doing a disservice to its customers by advertising a false sense of privacy. In today's ever-connected world, this is a sentiment many users can agree with as well.