Apple’s new iPhone privacy innovations give you more control over your personal data. Here’s how to enable them.
This iOS 15 feature lets you see how often apps use sensors like your camera and microphone. It’s an impressive new level of transparency.
App Privacy Report
If you’ve got an iPhone 15 and up, you’ll soon get the ability to see how your apps are using your privacy. This new feature is called the App Privacy Report, and it’s a lot like the transparency labels that Apple introduced with iOS 14 last year.
The report will show how frequently your everyday apps access sensitive data and sensors like the camera, location, contacts, media library, microphone and screen recording. It will also detail an app’s network activity, website network activity and the domains it contacts most often.
It will take a few days for the App Privacy Report to start showing you information, but once it does, you’ll have a pretty clear picture of how your apps are using your data.
Mail Privacy Protection
Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection feature on iOS 15 automatically downloads all content, including invisible tracking pixels, from every email you receive in your Apple Mail app and stores them on the Apple Privacy Cache. When a service sends you an email, it’s forwarded to a random Apple-created email address that masks your device’s IP address and geolocation.
The new feature is optional and can be enabled in the Mail settings in your iPhone’s Settings app. Email marketers should be prepared to stop using email open data as a performance measurement if their audience chooses to enable Mail Privacy Protection. This could have a significant impact on campaigns that rely heavily on open rates. However, users can always reverse the decision in the Mail settings.
On Device Siri Processing
At iphone 15 apple, the company unveiled a new iPhone privacy feature that should make a big difference to people who use Siri. For the first time, many voice requests will be processed on your phone instead of being uploaded to Apple’s servers — meaning they can be done offline.
This is a game-changing move for privacy. It will also speed up Siri’s performance.
But there’s one small catch: It only works on the latest iPhones and iPads with an A12 Bionic chip or better.
Other iOS 15 privacy updates include App Tracking Transparency that stops unwanted tracking and Mail Privacy Protection that prevents senders from knowing if you opened their email. And, of course, a slew of new security updates to further protect your digital identity.
Hide My Email
This feature is a great alternative for websites and apps that ask for your personal email address but you don’t trust. When you use Hide My Email, the website or app will see a random Apple-created email address that forwards to your personal account.
Other iOS 15 privacy innovations include iCloud Private Relay, which hides unencrypted web traffic from apps and websites. With iCloud Private Relay, your iPhone and iPad will route web traffic through two Apple relay servers that mask identifiable data like your browser profile and IP address. Apple also introduced a new focus mode that groups notifications and helps you stay on track. And biometric authentication, including Face ID, makes it harder for hackers to access your device. iMessage Contact Key Verification will alert participants in an iMessage conversation if someone tries to add an unauthorized device, giving you more control over your privacy.
iCloud Private Relay
At its annual developers conference, Apple announced a trio of new privacy-boosting features for its iCloud Plus subscription service. The most significant is iCloud Private Relay, which aims to prevent website tracking by sending your web requests through two internet relays.
The first Apple-controlled relay assigns your device a temporary IP address and the second third-party relay decrypts your requested web address to the destination. This prevents Apple, your network provider and the websites you visit from building a profile of who you are through your browsing habits.
The feature only works in Safari, which is a bummer for anyone who relies on other browsers to browse the web. And it’s not yet available in countries like China, where Apple doesn’t want to encourage bypassing government surveillance laws.