What makes NSCalendarsUsageDescription required?

Question

When I upload to iTunes Connect, my app gets the error that the NSCalendarsUsageDescription privacy is not provided. I am aware that this information is now mandatory, however I am not aware what and where my app uses something that would require this privacy usage description.

What is my app doing/using that it requires a NSCalendarsUsageDescription?

Dear developer,

We have discovered one or more issues with your recent delivery for "MyApp". To process your delivery, the following issues must be corrected:

This app attempts to access privacy-sensitive data without a usage description. The app's Info.plist must contain an NSCalendarsUsageDescription key with a string value explaining to the user how the app uses this data.

Once these issues have been corrected, you can then redeliver the corrected binary.

Regards,

The App Store team

Edit: Not a duplicate because of the fact that the solution didn't work as I already commented on the first answer AND the fact that the possible duplicate doesn't actually answer the question what (generally) makes this usage description required.

Possible duplicate of [iTunes Connect upload rejected with invalid binary because of missing NSCalendarsUsageDescription](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/39440016/itunes-connect-upload-rejected-with-invalid-binary-because-of-missing-nscalendar) — rmaddy, Sep 24 '16 at 20:09
Apple just added a new tech note: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/qa/qa1937/_index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40017549 — Martin Polak, Sep 26 '16 at 21:39

score 20 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 27 '17 at 10:10

Update you Info.plist file by adding permission base on your rejection mail or error log.

NSCameraUsageDescription

<key>NSCameraUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) camera use.</string>

NSContactsUsageDescription

<key>NSContactsUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) contacts use.</string>

NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription

<key>NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) photos and video use.</string>

NSBluetoothPeripheralUsageDescription

<key>NSBluetoothPeripheralUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) bluetooth use.</string>

NSMicrophoneUsageDescription

<key>NSMicrophoneUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) microphone use.</string>

NSMotionUsageDescription

<key>NSMotionUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) motion use.</string>

NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription

<key>NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) location use.</string>

NSLocationUsageDescription

<key>NSLocationUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) location use.</string>

NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription

<key>NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) location use.</string>

NSRemindersUsageDescription

<key>NSRemindersUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) reminders use.</string>

NSSiriUsageDescription

<key>NSSiriUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) siri use.</string>

NSVideoSubscriberAccountUsageDescription

<key>NSVideoSubscriberAccountUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) video use.</string>

NSSpeechRecognitionUsageDescription

<key>NSSpeechRecognitionUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) speech recognition use.</string>

NSCalendarsUsageDescription

<key>NSCalendarsUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) user your calendar.</string>

OR

Resolving the Privacy-Sensitive Data App Rejection

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/qa/qa1937/_index.html

Stanislav Pankevich · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-09T09:34:34.183

You could try using nm tool to look for EventKit specific symbols in your frameworks binaries, something like:

nm YourFramework.framework/YourFramework | grep EK # EK is a prefix for EventKit classes

Or one-liner (look for files without extension, also ignore CodeResources to reduce irrelevant output):

find YourApp/Frameworks ! -name '*CodeResources*' -type f ! -name "*.*" -exec nm -o -- {} + | grep EK

If there is such you will see something like:

0000000000003fdb t -[ClusterPrePermissions EKEquivalentEventType:]
                 U _OBJC_CLASS_$_EKEventStore

To learn more about nm run man nm in your terminal.

The nm tool is useful when you want to see which symbols a given binary contains. There are plenty of options that you can give to nm but most of the time it is enough to run it without any arguments to answer questions like: is symbol X present in a given binary?

What is this nm tool? Can i get a link to it's documentation? Or atleast where do we use it? — Edgaras, Jul 07 '20 at 11:44

score 9 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 24 '16 at 20:46

9

According to apples documentation:

NSCalendarsUsageDescription (String - iOS) This key lets you describe the reason your app accesses the user’s calendars. When the system prompts the user to allow access, this string is displayed as part of the alert.

it then goes on to explain how to implement it:

Important: To protect user privacy, an iOS app linked on or after iOS 10.0, and which accesses the user’s calendars, must statically declare the intent to do so. Include the NSCalendarsUsageDescription key in your app’s Info.plist file and provide a purpose string for this key. If your app attempts to access the user’s calendars without a corresponding purpose string, your app exits.

Basically just insert this into you info.plist file

 <key>NSCalendarsUsageDescription</key>
<string>purpose for using calendar</string>

you can read more about cocoa keys here

answered Sep 24 '16 at 20:46

Dustin Spengler

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When I was asking the question, this was clear - after all it pops up as first search result in google. I'm more interested in specific frameworks or functionality that actually makes the usage description required, like EventKit or NSCalendar. – Martin Polak Sep 24 '16 at 21:05
The EventKit is what requires it – Dustin Spengler Sep 24 '16 at 21:07
The description key pops up inside of the alert view when your app requests to access the calendar in your phone – Dustin Spengler Sep 24 '16 at 21:14
Other then appearing in the alert view I don't think it's used for anything. – Dustin Spengler Sep 24 '16 at 21:15
It's simply used to inform the user as to why your app needs access to their calendar – Dustin Spengler Sep 24 '16 at 21:25
So, is EventKit the only framework to require it? Nowhere I am using EventKit and I can't find which dependency might link to it... – Martin Polak Sep 25 '16 at 08:52
Very strange... are you creating an instance of EKCalendar or EKEvent? – Dustin Spengler Sep 25 '16 at 17:21
No, I'm not even linking to EventKit. I'm waiting for apple support's response and hope that they can tell me which of my many frameworks I use links to EventKit. – Martin Polak Sep 25 '16 at 18:01

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 08 '16 at 16:04

4

Update to new version of AdMob SDK solved my issue.

answered Dec 08 '16 at 16:04

thatzprem

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 22 '19 at 19:38

For anyone wondering why all of a sudden your app now has all these permission settings in the first place it could be because of CocoaPods or Carthage - they put in hooks to all of these permissions. I just upgraded my app to use cordova-plugin-firebasex which has an extensive Cocoapods (and dependencies) installation. You can turn these permissions off BEFORE you install cocoapods into your project by putting a PermissionsConfiguration.xcconfig in the root of your project - you can read more about this here: https://cocoapods.org/pods/Permission#installation

This all surprised me when the new version of my app was rejected with 7 permissions key/string missing from Info.plist file. I then had to dig into my project to find what was causing this since my app doesn't need or use any of these permissions (never has).

It may exist but at the moment I can't find a way to remove permissions after pods integration...going to have to dig around on how to do this without starting my project over.

Sunil Bhosale · Answer 6 · 2023-06-26T06:34:12.110

Update your info.plist to add NSCalendarsUsageDescription to show A message that tells people why the app is requesting access to their calendar data

Update:

NSCalendarsUsageDescription has been deprecated . If your app needs read and write access to a person’s calendar data, use NSCalendarsFullAccessUsageDescription instead. If your app needs to create events in a person’s default calendar, use NSCalendarsWriteOnlyAccessUsageDescription instead.

Use:

<key>NSCalendarsUsageDescription</key>
<string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) user your calendar.</string>

And

<key>NSCalendarsFullAccessUsageDescription</key>
<string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) user your calendar.</string>

OR

<key>NSCalendarsWriteOnlyAccessUsageDescription</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME) user your calendar.</string>

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/eventkit/accessing_the_event_store

What makes NSCalendarsUsageDescription required?

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