Three of the features in iOS 27 exist to pass your information to someone else. Apple Pay’s Tap to Share connects to a merchant’s iPhone to share your email, shipping and loyalty details, Find My gains location sharing that stops at a time you set, and Wallet can turn a scanned physical loyalty card into a digital pass.
Apple’s description of each runs to a line or two, and none of them says what happens to the information after it leaves your iPhone. Here is what Apple has published for each, including the one that is not available in the European Economic Area.
Key facts: what Apple says each feature shares
| Feature | What Apple says it shares | Published limits |
|---|---|---|
| Tap to Share, in Apple Pay | Connects to a merchant’s iPhone to share email, shipping and loyalty details at checkout | iPhone 12 or later on iOS 27, and “not currently available in the European Economic Area” |
| Find My flexible sharing | Location, for a custom duration, stopping at a set time, or paused until the end of the day | No device requirement published |
| Wallet passes from physical cards | A scanned loyalty or membership card barcode, turned into a digital pass | Can be pinned to the Smart Stack on Apple Watch |
| Bill splitting with Apple Cash | A receipt scanned through Siri mode in Camera, split including tax and tip | U.S. only, through Green Dot Bank, and “requires Siri AI on an Apple Intelligence-enabled device” |
| Enhanced hotel keys | Trip details, activity updates and services carried in the key | No property list published |
Tap to Share is the one that reaches another company
Apple describes Tap to Share as connecting your iPhone to a merchant’s iPhone so you can share the details a checkout normally asks for: email address, shipping address and loyalty information. It needs iPhone 12 or later running iOS 27.
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Apple also states that Tap to Share is “not currently available in the European Economic Area”. It gives no reason for that, and it names no date for a change.
What Apple does not publish is the other half of the transaction: what a merchant may keep once the details arrive, and whether anything is retained by Apple. Nothing in the feature description covers it, so nothing here will describe it either. The full list of what Apple did announce is in our event recap.
Find My sharing now comes with an end time
Find My gains three controls in iOS 27: a custom duration for a share, the option to stop sharing at a set time, and the option to pause sharing until the end of the day. Those are the three Apple lists.
Apple publishes no device requirement for them and no statement about what remains once a share ends. There is no retention period anywhere in the material Apple has put out for this feature.
Wallet builds passes from cards you scan
Wallet can scan a physical loyalty or membership card carrying a barcode and create a digital pass from it, which can then be pinned in the Smart Stack on Apple Watch. Hotel keys in Wallet also carry more: trip details, activity updates and the property’s services.
Apple does not say where the scan itself is handled. Its general architecture statement is that Apple Intelligence runs on device and on servers through Private Cloud Compute, and that it “analyzes whether it can be processed on the device or if it requires Private Cloud Compute”, but Apple has published no per-feature routing map, and the Wallet lines name neither path.
The country and device gates Apple did publish
Bill splitting with Apple Cash is the strictest. It is U.S. only, runs through Green Dot Bank, and requires Siri AI on an Apple Intelligence-enabled device. The receipt is scanned using Siri mode in the Camera app, one of the new features on the iPhone 18 Pro.
| Feature | Where Apple says it works |
|---|---|
| Tap to Share | Not currently available in the European Economic Area |
| Bill splitting with Apple Cash | U.S. only |
| Maps Local Lists | U.S. only |
| Siri AI | Beta, English to start, and not initially available in the EU on iOS, iPadOS and watchOS |
| Call Context, Messages and Mail Suggestions | English only |
| Voice Control with natural language | English, in the U.S., Canada, UK and Australia |
On the EU line Apple adds that “features that rely on Siri AI” are also out initially, and that it is “working hard to find a path forward that preserves its users’ privacy and security”.
Server-side features also carry daily usage limits. Apple’s footnote names Siri AI, intelligent photo editing tools, Image Playground and “AFM 3 Cloud models” in Shortcuts, and adds that expanded access to such features will be available for a fee in the future. Our iOS 27 release guide covers what lands on Monday.
What Apple has not said
- Nothing about what a merchant keeps, or for how long, after Tap to Share hands over your details.
- No retention period for a shared location, a scanned pass, a split receipt or a hotel key record.
- No statement about where a card or receipt scan is processed, on the device or in Private Cloud Compute.
- No reason for the European Economic Area exclusion on Tap to Share, and no date for it to change.
- No definition of “AFM 3 Cloud models”, the term Apple uses for the server models behind Shortcuts.
iOS 27 arrives Monday, September 14 as a free update for iPhone 11 and later, plus iPhone SE (2nd generation and later). The features above ship with it except where Apple has dated them later, and the September 9 announcements are collected in our event live blog.
