If you’re worried about your data being utilized for AI training, you’ll find the recent update Apple made to the iOS App Store to be significant.

Apple has notified app developers that they must “clearly state where personal data will be shared with third parties, including third-party AI,” and that all applications must “secure explicit consent before doing so.”

This revised language marks Apple’s preliminary guidance on third-party AI and is found in a document called App Review Guidelines. The introduction stresses that adherence to these guidelines is effectively compulsory.

“We will deny apps for any content or conduct that we deem to overstep the boundaries,” Apple declares in the guidelines. “What boundaries, you inquire? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once remarked, ‘I’ll know it when I see it.’ And we believe that you will also recognize when you cross it.”

This modification, which was made public last week, is the first instance of AI being mentioned in the guidelines. Under CEO Tim Cook’s leadership, Apple has approached AI with caution, slowly incorporating AI capabilities into Siri, and at times hesitant to use the term “AI”; Cook has frequently favored “machine learning” in previous presentations.

Data sourcing for AI model training has evolved into a legally controversial matter in Silicon Valley. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, the parent company of Mashable, initiated a lawsuit in April against OpenAI, alleging it violated Ziff Davis copyrights in training and running its AI systems.)

Even Apple, which is reportedly gearing up to utilize Google Gemini for Siri soon, is not immune.

Last month, two lawsuits charged Apple with misappropriating the work of others for its AI training. In distinct filings, two neuroscientists and two authors asserted that Cook’s company utilized data from “shadow libraries,” or pirated material available online.

While Apple’s response remains to be seen, the legal prospects do not appear promising for the company. AI leader Anthropic reached a settlement in September for $1.5 billion over a class-action lawsuit related to shadow library usage.

Nonetheless, Apple can now assert that it is safeguarding its users from AI data-scraping within its applications.