IDFAs will largely disappear from exports and other data integrations.

Branch is working to rebuild data integrations that depend on IDFAs. IDFVs will continue to be available as an alternate identifier.

You’ll need to find a new primary key (such as the IDFV) for your internal business intelligence and analytics.
Depending on the specific data integration you use, you may also need to make in-app code updates to pass an alternative identifier.

You won’t have IDFA values available to submit for GDPR/CCPA data deletion requests.

Our Data Subject Request API already supports alternative identifiers, including IDFV and developer_id.

You will need to send Branch alternative identifiers (such as IDFV or developer_id) instead of IDFA for all data deletion requests.

The major SAN networks (Google, Facebook, Twitter, Snap) have announced they will initially support only SKAdNetwork for the release iOS 14.

Branch is building support for SKAdNetwork, including updates to our iOS SDKs and a new reporting dashboard. We are also working with the SAN networks to enable support for Branch predictive modeling.

You will need to set up SKAdNetwork in your app, or move your ad spend to alternative campaign types or ad networks that support predictive modeling via tracking links.

IDFAs will only be available after users opt in

In order to give you full control over the user experience, the Branch SDK will not trigger the IDFA permission modal. However, we will still collect and use IDFAs when available if you do choose to trigger the modal.

If you want to collect IDFAs, you can implement the permission modal yourself.

Deterministic deferred deep link matches (+match_guaranteed = true) will no longer be available for the first app session post-install on iOS 14.

Deferred deep linking will still be possible via probabilistic modeling techniques (as it always has been in situations where a deterministic match could not be made). However, these probabilistic links should not be relied upon for user authentication or other critical failure use cases.

If you leveraged +match_guaranteed data for use cases such as auto-login from a link, this functionality will stop working on iOS 14 in most cases.
Assuming best practices were used in development, your app should already be set up to gracefully failover in this situation.

With the industry falling back on probabilistic modeling techniques in the absence of IDFAs, we anticipate that the mix of tactics employed by fraudsters will change. Certain data points Branch currently uses for fraud detection (like Persona age) will become less useful. Most others will be unaffected, however.

Because Branch has broad knowledge of legitimate user behavior across both web and app, our fraud detection engine will have a significant advantage in determining which conversions are valid.

Nothing is required from you.

The non-SAN integrations that Branch maintains use Branch tracking links to measure performance. These tracking links will no longer be populated with the IDFA macro.

We’re working with these networks to update tracking links to support predictive modeling in place of IDFAs.

Nothing is required if you integrated via the Branch SDK.
Note: if you use a S2S integration with Branch (rare), you will likely need to make updates to pass additional install metadata.