Apple to tighten Mac disk access over risks from AI agents

Apple is preparing new limits for the "Full Disk Access" permission in macOS. As The Verge reports, citing an earlier story by TechCrunch, the company announced in a Friday update that it is rolling out new controls meant to "ensure that users who genuinely wish to grant an app this extraordinary level of access can only do so with very explicit user action."

Full disk access is a macOS permission that grants an app access to a user's entire system. By Apple's own admission, the feature "largely sidesteps" the privacy controls built into the system — it was originally intended to let backup apps function properly.

Why Apple is worried

The trigger is AI agents. According to the company, some developers are using full disk access in ways that put users at risk, exposing "everything on their systems — including files, mail, messages, and even browsing history — without users' full knowledge and understanding." And as AI agents become more capable and autonomous, Apple says, the risks tied to that level of access will grow "substantially."

The announcement comes just weeks after Inc's Jason Aten found that Meta's Muse AI somehow knew the contents of his messages, even though he hadn't given the chatbot explicit permission to access them on either his iPhone or Mac. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone pushed back, saying access to Messages is "entirely opt-in": for Muse to read message content, a user has to separately enable both Full Disk Access and the Messages connector.

What's still unclear

Apple did not say when the update will ship, and the company did not immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment. For now, only the direction is known: gaining sweeping access to a user's data will get harder, and it will require a "very explicit" action from the user.

Source: The Verge