Don’t Want Your Apps to Track You? Disable This One iPhone Setting
Who has access to your personal data? Apple believes this should be you and you alone. In recent years, the tech giant has launched a series of anti-tracking tools designed to help you Take back control of your personal information: This includes your activity, location, and other sensitive data.
Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature gives Apple users a simple choice to allow apps to track or not track their activity. If you opt out, Apple will prevent the app from accessing the following identifiers: Link your device to your activity on the appoften shared with advertisers to create targeted ads. Unless you explicitly allow an app (including apps made by Apple) to track you, it cannot use your data for targeted advertising, including sharing your location data, advertising ID, or any other identifier with advertisers or third parties.
This feature debuted in Apple’s 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference and It was then rolled out to users later that year iOS 14.5. Since then, Apple has built on those efforts to increase transparency and privacy. exist New iOS 17Apple has made a change that allows users Choose your default search engine when browsing privately mode, allowing users to select search engines other than Google in a private Safari tab. Apple recently previewed a feature coming in a future iOS update that will make it harder for thieves to steal Access sensitive information on stolen devices.
Apple’s app tracking transparency feature has widespread implications across the tech industry. The function draws Support from privacy advocates But criticism from companies, e.g. Yuanthe company said the move would hurt its advertising business. Meta’s concerns were on full display on social media platforms, A 2021 Financial Times survey It’s estimated that the feature cost Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube a combined $9.85 billion in lost ad sales because most Apple users opted out of tracking.
You can change whether you allow tracking at any time, even if you don’t initially opt out. Here’s how to use the app tracking transparency feature.
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How to turn off app tracking on new apps
When you download and open a new app, you’ll get a pop-up notification asking if you want the app to track your activity on other companies’ apps and websites. You’ll also see information about what the app will track. You can click Ask apps not to track block the activity or allow.
When you download an app, you’ll see a pop-up notification letting you choose whether to give the app permission to track you.
You can also opt out of app tracking for every app you download by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking and close Allow application request tracking. This means that any app that attempts to ask for your permission will automatically be blocked from asking and notified that you have requested not to be tracked. According to Apple, all apps (except those to which you have granted tracking permission in the past) will be blocked from accessing information on your device for advertising purposes.
It’s worth noting that this doesn’t mean advertising will disappear. It just means you’re more likely to see a generic ad than an ad for the exact pair of shoes you clicked on.
How to turn off app tracking for downloaded apps
You can also Turn app tracking permissions on or off On a per-application basis.
To do this, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking. You should see a list of applications requesting tracking of you. Click the switch next to the app you want to stop tracking you.
All application developers must request tracking permission. If Apple learns that developers are tracking users who ask not to be tracked, they will need to update their tracking practices or risk rejection from the App Store.
Apple sees such privacy features as a differentiator for its products compared to other tech giants like Google and Samsung. Cook has said that because of the company’s business model Not based on selling advertisingwhich could focus on privacy, which he calls “basic human rights“.
Even so, it’s important to remember that when you ask an app not to track you, you mean that you don’t want app developers to have access to a unique identifier that Apple created specifically for advertisers – your IDFA. Denying access to your iPhone’s IDFA doesn’t necessarily mean that app developers can’t track you in other ways, so it’s important to be mindful of the apps you use and how you interact with them.
For more information about security and privacy, check out Best VPNs of 2024 and How to stop Google from tracking your location.
