Trail Wallet 3.4.3 is out now! It's a small bug fix update but it does also remove the crash reporting framework we were using.
This is because of…
The GDPR!
The General Data Protection Regulation is a new EU law concerning privacy. It puts strict limits on what companies handling private information can do with that information.
Trail Wallet was using Fabric (which is owned by Google) for crash reporting. Unfortunately, it has the ability to collect more information than it needed and it also had the ability to collect arbitrary information from every device (Trail Wallet was not doing this, btw—we were only interested in the crash reporting).
This was enough to potentially put it in violation of the GDPR without significant work. So we have removed it and we are now relying on Apple’s built-in crash reporting.
However, this is explicitly opt-in only. You have to agree to send us the data.
When you first set up a new device (or install a major new version of iOS), you’re asked whether or not you'd like to share App Analytics with developers. It is extremely helpful if you agree to do this. Apple is pretty good about privacy so no personal data is shared, only aggregated metrics and, most importantly, crash logs.
Enabling App Analytics
To enable App Analytics in iOS 11:
- Go to the device Settings app
- Tap on “Privacy”
- Scroll to the bottom and tap “Analytics”
- Make sure “Share with App Developers” is switched on
If you decide not to, that's totally cool. Should you have any issues with Trail Wallet in the future—especially if it involves a crash—it would be helpful if you could switch on App Analytics and then make Trail Wallet crash again a few times so that we can get sent the reports. You can then switch off Analytics again afterwards.
We believe that the GDPR is a step in the right direction for user privacy. While dropping Fabric is a little less convenient for us, we really don't want your personal information. We don't use ads in our apps and all of your app data is stored on your device and in your iCloud account which we don't have access to.
Thanks for your continued support (also, did we mention that we updated our privacy policy?)!
