Apple to Limit Accelerometer and Gyroscope Access in Safari on iOS 12.2 for Privacy Reasons

Last month, Apple released iOS 12.2 in beta with several new features, including the Apple News app in Canada, a redesigned TV remote in Control Center, support for adding HomeKit-enabled TVs in the Home app, and more.

The upcoming software update also introduces a new Motion & Orientation Access toggle under Settings > Safari > Privacy & Security. Toggled off by default, this new setting must be turned on in order for websites to display features that rely on motion data from the gyroscope and accelerometer in the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

safari motion access 2
To test this, we loaded the What Web Can Do Today website on an ‌iPhone‌ running the first beta of iOS 12.2. With the Motion & Orientation Access setting toggled on, the page shows real-time accelerometer and gyroscope data from the ‌iPhone‌. With the setting toggled off, no motion data is shown.

Another example is Apple's motion-based iPhone experience site. This page normally allows you to tilt your actual ‌iPhone‌ to swivel the ‌iPhone‌ XS Max on the screen with tech specs. With Motion & Orientation Access toggled off, however, only a static image of the ‌iPhone‌ XS Max is shown without tech specs.

safari motion access 1
This privacy-focused change could be in response to a WIRED report last year that claimed thousands of websites have unmitigated access to motion, orientation, proximity, and light sensor data on mobile devices. Software engineer Felix Krause also filed a radar and notified Apple's security team about this matter in 2017.

As noted by Digiday, the setting could have implications for AR/VR advertising:

For example, Samsung's "Samsung Within" web-based interactive experience, developed by R/GA to promote the hardware brand's legacy and its Galaxy Note 9 phone, uses the accelerometer to let people explore the night sky.

"It's definitely going to break things," said Kai Tier, executive technology director at R/GA.

These AR/VR experiences may have to rely on fallback versions that people can navigate with swipe gestures instead, but this largely defeats the purpose of motion-based, interactive campaigns.

It's quite possible Apple could tweak how this feature works in time for the public release of iOS 12.2. Perhaps the setting will be toggled on by default in a subsequent beta, for example, or Safari could prompt users for permission to access motion data when necessary as it does with location data.

Tag: Safari
Related Forum: iOS 12

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching in Three Months With These 12 New Features

Saturday June 14, 2025 5:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
iPadOS 26 App Windowing

Apple Explains Why iPads Don't Just Run macOS

Friday June 13, 2025 7:46 am PDT by
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why. In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
Logitech Logo Feature

Logitech Announces Two New Accessories for WWDC

Friday June 13, 2025 7:22 am PDT by
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro. The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
iOS 26 Screens

Here Are All the iOS 26 Features That Require iPhone 15 Pro or Newer

Thursday June 12, 2025 4:53 am PDT by
With iOS 26, Apple has introduced some major changes to the iPhone experience, headlined by the new Liquid Glass redesign that's available across all compatible devices. However, several of the update's features are exclusive to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models, since they rely on Apple Intelligence. The following features are powered by on-device large language models and machine...
CarPlay Liquid Glass Dark

Apple to Let iPhone Users Watch Videos on CarPlay Screen While Parked

Thursday June 12, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple this week announced that iPhone users will soon be able to watch videos right on the CarPlay screen in supported vehicles. iPhone users will be able to wirelessly stream videos to the CarPlay screen using AirPlay, according to Apple. For safety reasons, video playback will only be available when the vehicle is parked, to prevent distracted driving. The connected iPhone will be able to...
iOS 26 on Three iPhones

Hate iOS 26's Liquid Glass Design? Here's How to Tone It Down

Wednesday June 11, 2025 4:22 pm PDT by
iOS 26 features a whole new design material that Apple calls Liquid Glass, with a focus on transparency that lets the content on your display shine through the controls. If you're not a fan of the look, or are having trouble with readability, there is a step that you can take to make things more opaque without entirely losing out on the new look. Apple has multiple Accessibility options that ...
iOS 26 Feature

Apple Seeds Revised iOS 26 Developer Beta to Fix Battery Issue

Friday June 13, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple today provided developers with a revised version of the first iOS 26 beta for testing purposes. The update is only available for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models, so if you're running iOS 26 on an iPhone 14 or earlier, you won't see the revised beta. Registered developers can download the new beta software through the Settings app on each device. The revised beta addresses an...
Mac Studio Feature

Apple Begins Selling Refurbished Mac Studio With M4 Max and M3 Ultra Chips at a Discount

Thursday June 12, 2025 10:14 am PDT by
Apple today added Mac Studio models with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips to its online certified refurbished store in the United States, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and many European countries, for the first time since they were released in March. As usual for refurbished Macs, prices are discounted by approximately 15% compared to the equivalent new models on Apple's online store. Note that Apple's ...

Top Rated Comments

fredrik9 Avatar
83 months ago
Not sure how much this would preserve privacy, but at the same time I can't imagine accelerometer data is very largely used in mobile web dev in the first place.

Sounds more just like security theatre being put on by Apple, but if anyone out there knows something I don't, by all means feel free to enlighten me.
According to the WIRED report: ”the information could fuel various types of attacks, like using ambient light data to make inferences about a user's browsing, or using motion sensor data as a sort of keylogger to deduce things like PIN numbers”

So this seems like it could be a potential threat to privacy and the security of your personal information. Albeit a very small one.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
fredrik9 Avatar
83 months ago
One can hope that a pop-up appears when a website requires gyroscope access. Without one, and the setting off by default, many consumers would be at loss since most wouldn’t know how to turn it on.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jayducharme Avatar
83 months ago
This article seems to be misleading. It doesn't seem to me that Apple is limiting access; it seems to just be making that feature "opt in" rather than "opt out".
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
vicviper789 Avatar
83 months ago
Not sure how much this would preserve privacy, but at the same time I can't imagine accelerometer data is very largely used in mobile web dev in the first place.

Sounds more just like security theatre being put on by Apple, but if anyone out there knows something I don't, by all means feel free to enlighten me.
It’s legitimate, there are algorithms to figure out your keystrokes based on gyro and accelerometer data. MIT demo’d it a few years ago IIRC.

Update: done is 2011

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/10/researchers-can-keylog-your-pc-using-your-iphones-accelerometer/
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
citysnaps Avatar
83 months ago
Not sure how much this would preserve privacy, but at the same time I can't imagine accelerometer data is very largely used in mobile web dev in the first place.

Sounds more just like security theatre being put on by Apple, but if anyone out there knows something I don't, by all means feel free to enlighten me.
I think there's some potential for collected accelerometer/gyroscope data to be exploited with respect to creating motion/location profiles of a phone user. It depends on the accuracy and drift of the sensors, time references, signal processing techniques employed, required accuracy, etc.

I wouldn't be shocked if a very clever individual/company could create something interesting of value (ie, sellable processed user information) from collected raw sensor data.

I'm glad Apple is thinking ahead with respect to the possibilities and privacy implications.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
VictoryHighway Avatar
83 months ago
Interesting. The limitations to interactive ad or experiential campaigns would be frustrating for many companies that have things in the works. But this would provide another potential opportunity for Apple, which they really should look into: an internally-hosted and -approved ad platform. Apple should offer a way to have interactive ads that rely on iOS device information to the company for review and eventual hosting once approved. This way, they keep control of where that data goes (I think many trust Apple more than any other company to keep the data secure and only used for the purpose of displaying the experience), and Apple can take a reasonable fee for the privacy and availability of such a service that it hosts, adding another service-based revenue stream. It's a good way to capitalize on its user base without "selling" its customer information... Instead, they're just getting paid to be a watchdog over your private device metrics to let you experience more types of media online worry-free.
They had that. It was called iAd and it was a major flop.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)