iOS 14’s Privacy Features Are Breaking Some Enterprise And School Setups

When Apple announced iOS 14, they announced a bunch of privacy changes to the platform that would better protect users against things like tracking. One of those changes included how iOS devices would use a random MAC address when connecting to WiFi networks, with the idea being that it would prevent retailers from using MAC addresses to track customers.

This sounds great for the end-user, but not so much for corporations and schools because according to Cisco, they are warning their customers that upgrading to iOS 14 could potentially break some network setups used by companies, schools, colleges, and so on. This will apply to organizations to give out devices to employees or students, as well as those who offer BYOD alternatives.

According to Cisco, there is currently no way around this problem other than to disable the random MAC address feature. “For Profiling and MDM services, end users can be instructed to disable MAC address randomization on the device before obtaining intended network access. In order to do so, users can be redirected to a modified hotspot page that provides instructions to disable MAC address randomization when the device uses a random MAC address to connect to the network. Once MAC address randomization is disabled, the user can connect normally.”

iOS 14 was just released the other day and many developers are complaining about how little notice Apple gave to them, resulting in quite a number of apps not working properly (or at all) on devices that updated to the latest version of iOS.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones, General, Tablets
Tags: iOS, ios 14, Privacy