Apple Privacy

Digital privacy is a perennial hot topic these days, and Apple is regarded as being at the forefront of security when it comes to smartphone and tablet operating systems. For example, for an app to access your iPhone or iPad's camera, camera and microphone access must be enabled for the app in question in the Settings app. Social media apps will often ask you for access to your device's...

In iOS 17, Apple offers finer-grained control over what apps can see in terms of your calendars. Keep reading to learn how to manage app calendar access on a per-app basis. In iOS 16, Apple allowed users to enable or disable individual app access to their calendars using a simple on/off toggle, but that was about all you could do. In iOS 17, by contrast, there are now three options instead...

In iOS 17, Apple offers much more control over what apps can see in terms of your photos. Keep reading to learn how to manage app access on a per-app basis. In iOS, Apple's in-app photos picker lets you share specific photos with apps while the rest of your Photo Library stays private. Apps must ask to access your entire photo library, and you can choose to give apps the following access: ...

In iOS 16, Apple added a new Safety Check feature that's designed to make it easy for users to quickly reset all of the data and location access that they have granted to other people. Keep reading to learn how it works and how to use it. Safety Check is a new option in iOS 16 that lets you stay aware of and reset all of the access to your data and location that you have granted to others....

When you browse the web on your devices, websites will often leave cookies on your system so that they can remember you and what your preferences are. Some cookies are genuinely useful, as they allow sites to save your personal information (such as your login credentials) so that you don't have to keep entering it every time you visit. However, for the same reason, cookies can pose a...

In iOS 14 and later, your iPhone or iPad can use a different MAC address with each Wi-Fi network to prevent network operators from tracking your phone across different WiFi networks. To communicate with a Wi-Fi network, a device has to identify itself to the network with a unique network address called a media access control (MAC) address. If your iOS device always uses the same Wi-Fi MAC...

This article explains how to delete your Siri audio interaction history and opt out of sharing audio recordings with Apple on Macs. In 2019, it was discovered that Apple hired contractors to listen to a small percentage of anonymized ‌Siri‌ recordings to evaluate the virtual assistant's responses with the purpose of improving accuracy and reliability. The Guardian revealed that Apple...

This article explains how to delete your Siri audio interaction history and opt out of sharing audio recordings with Apple on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. How to Opt Out of Siri Audio Sharing on HomePod How to Delete Your Siri Audio History on HomePod In 2019, it was discovered that Apple hired contractors to listen to a small percentage of anonymized Siri recordings to evaluate the virtual...

This article explains how to delete your Siri audio interaction history and opt out of sharing audio recordings with Apple on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. How to Opt Out of Siri Audio Sharing How to Delete Your Siri Audio History Earlier this year, it was discovered that Apple hired contractors to listen to a small percentage of anonymized Siri recordings to evaluate the virtual...

Mozilla this week began piloting its own browser-based VPN service, and if you're located in the U.S. you can start testing it for free right away. Called the Firefox Private Network, the service promises Firefox users a more secure, encrypted path to the web that prevents eavesdroppers from spying on your browsing activity and hides your location from websites and ad trackers. In that...

Apple has doubled down on its privacy features in iOS 13, giving iPhone and iPad users a more granular view of how apps access their location information. On Apple devices, the location services that apps can tap into use GPS, Bluetooth, and crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cellular mast locations to determine your approximate location. The good news is that iOS 13 makes you more aware of how...

Apple now allows its customers to download a copy of their personally identifiable data from Apple apps and services. This can include purchase or app usage history, Apple Music and Game Center statistics, marketing history, AppleCare support history, and any data stored on Apple servers, including the likes of calendars, photos, and documents. This article outlines the steps you need to take ...

Every time you visit a website you are sharing information about yourself with the outside world. This article runs through a number of methods you can use to gain more control over what gets shared, and who it gets shared with, whenever you use Apple's Safari browser to access the web on a Mac. It also covers methods you can use to prevent traces of your browsing history from showing up on...

Every time you visit a website on your iPhone or iPad, you are sharing information about yourself with the outside world. This guide runs through a number of methods you can use to gain more control over what gets shared, and who it gets shared with, whenever you use Apple's Safari browser to access the web on an iOS device. It also covers some methods you can use to prevent traces of your...

Internet ad firms are losing out on "hundreds of millions of dollars" following the implementation of anti-tracking features introduced to Safari with iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra, reports The Guardian. One of the largest advertising firms, Criteo, announced in December that Intelligent Tracking Prevention could have a 22 percent net negative impact on its 2018 revenue projections. Other...

Apple this morning launched a revamped and redesigned Privacy website designed to make its privacy policies more accessible to consumers. The new site better outlines how Apple's commitment to privacy benefits users through concrete examples of features like Apple Pay and an iPhone's passcode, and it explains how Apple uses encryption, Differential Privacy, and strict app guidelines to protect ...

Encrypted messaging app Telegram received an update on Sunday that makes it the latest chat platform to embrace Snapchat-style disappearing messages. Up until now, Telegram users have only been able to send text-based "secret chats" that self-delete, but in version 4.2 of the app they can now share videos and photos armed with a self-destruct timer. Timers are set using the clock icon in ...

Apple has sent its top privacy executives to Australia twice in the past month to lobby government officials over proposed new laws that would require companies to provide access to encrypted messages. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Apple privacy advocates met with attorney general George Brandis and senior staff in Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's office on Tuesday to discuss their...

Telegram is to form a team of moderators to remove terrorist-related content from the encrypted messaging platform in Indonesia, after the country's government threatened to ban the app. Indonesia's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has already blocked access to the web version of the chat platform, citing concerns that it was being used to spread "radical and terrorist...

Australia is set to push for greater international powers to thwart the use of encrypted messaging services by terrorists and criminals, according to reports on Sunday (via Reuters). The topic will be addressed this week at a meeting of officials from the "Five Eyes" intelligence sharing network, which includes the U.S., the U.K, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Australia claimed the...

Russia has threatened to block access to the Telegram messaging platform unless the company that runs the app provides more information about itself (via Sky News). The head of communications regulator Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov, said repeated efforts to obtain the information had been ignored by the company and warned that "time is running out" for the app. "There is one demand and it ...

Encrypted email provider ProtonMail today launched its own VPN service called ProtonVPN, which includes a free user tier in its pricing plan. The Swiss-based company said it had been testing its VPN service for four months with the help of over 10,000 members of the ProtonMail community, and the group was ready to make ProtonVPN available to everyone starting Tuesday. The Proton group...

The European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs has published draft proposals that would enforce end-to-end encryption on all digital communications and forbid backdoors that enable law enforcement to access private message data. The proposed amendment relates to Article 7 of the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, which says that EU citizens have a right to...

Former Apple employees who worked on Siri believe the virtual assistant is struggling to catch up with its rivals because of a lack of ambitious goals stemming from the company's overarching concern with user privacy, a report by The Wall Street Journal revealed on Thursday. Unlike Amazon and Google, which leverage and retain user data off-device to inform and enhance queries put to their...

Users of iOS 11 will be able to restrict the gathering of location data by any third-party app so that it can only access the device's location status when the app is in use. Previously the security setting only applied to certain apps that chose to offer it – as well as to developers wanting to test their own app's use of location data – but it appears Apple is extending the setting for...

Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed on Monday that the company has been helping the U.K. government investigate terror attacks in the country, despite being criticized by officials for its steadfast support of digital services that use end-to-end encryption. "We have been cooperating with the U.K. government not only in law enforcement kind of matters but on some of the attacks," Cook said during a ...

An alleged leak of a draft technical paper prepared by the U.K. government contains proposals that endorse the "live" surveillance of British web users' online communications, it emerged this week. Civil liberties organization the Open Rights Group received the document on May 4 and decided to publish the draft, which states that telecommunications companies and internet service providers...

United States President Donald Trump today signed into law a bill that reverses Obama-era broadband privacy rules preventing Internet Service Providers from selling a subscriber's web browsing history and other personal information without permission. The now-reversed law would have limited what ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T could do with sensitive customer data like location, browsing...

The House of Representatives voted this week to repeal a law previously passed by the Obama administration, requiring Internet Service Providers to gain permission from users in order to access and share certain pieces of personal information with advertisers (via The Washington Post). The law, which was approved last year prior to the Presidential election, limited what ISPs such as Verizon, ...

Earlier today a new series of WikiLeaks leaks revealed the United States Central Intelligence Agency's efforts to hack iPhones. The leaks detail a number of iOS exploits that can be used to bypass security on devices. Tonight, Apple said in a statement provided to TechCrunch that most of the vulnerabilities detailed in the leaks have been patched. “Apple is deeply committed to safeguarding ...

Encrypted communications app Signal received an update yesterday that enabled video calling for the first time, but the latest version also brings CallKit support to the platform, which may leave some privacy-conscious users wary. Introduced in iOS 10, the CallKit SDK allows incoming calls from third-party VoIP apps to appear on the iOS lock screen and recent calls list, just like standard...

Apple has partnered with security firm Tresorit so that developers using Apple's CareKit platform will have access to increased privacy options (via Mashable). Tresorit's security technology, ZeroKit, will bring user authentication to patients and healthcare workers, while its end-to-end encryption smarts promise "zero knowledge" sharing of health data. The ZeroKit team announced the...

Israeli mobile software developer Cellebrite gained media attention earlier this year when rumors suggested the FBI recruited the company to unlock San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook's iPhone. While the FBI did not enlist Cellebrite's help, the company does have technology licensed by governments that can extract iPhone data. ZDNet has obtained documents that reveal the scope of this technology. ...

The European Union's highest court has ruled that the "general and indiscriminate retention" of electronic communications by governments is illegal, in a direct challenge to the U.K.'s recently passed Investigatory Powers Act, the so-called "Snooper's Charter" (via The Guardian). The U.K. bill requires that internet service providers retain a record of all websites visited by citizens for 12...