Apple Tightens macOS Full Disk Access: No Names Mentioned, but Everyone Knows This Is About Muse
On October 2 Apple announced it is tightening the Full Disk Access permission on macOS. Apps will need an explicit user action to receive it, so that users understand they are granting an extraordinary system-wide privilege.
Three key facts
Apple's statement is unusually blunt: some developers are using Full Disk Access in ways that could put users at risk, exposing everything on their systems without users' full knowledge and understanding. It then names the reason: as AI agents become increasingly capable and autonomous, the risks associated with this level of access will grow substantially.
Apple named no one, but the timeline does the talking. Days earlier an Inc. columnist reported that Meta's Muse had read his private messages without explicit permission, and Wired reported a security flaw in the ChatGPT Mac app. Full Disk Access used to be for backup and antivirus tools. Personal agents now want the same key.
Apple did not say which macOS version will carry the new controls or whether already-granted permissions will be revisited. It is the first platform-level rule change triggered by Muse, less than a month after launch.
WangDou's Take
In plain language: you hired a housekeeper, she said she needs keys to every room in order to vacuum, and then she tidied your drawers while she was at it. Apple's fix is to hang one more Are You Sure tag on the key. That tag has been hanging there for over a decade, and when did a user ever not click yes with their eyes closed? The real problem is not the dialog. The macOS permission model was designed top to bottom for a human, and a human does not read every file you own once an hour. An agent does. Apple reacted fast by its standards, but all it controls is the door to its own system. Where the agent sends what it reads once inside is not something a dialog box governs.