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...

Evernote tonight announced that it no longer plans to implement a controversial new privacy policy that caused some Evernote users to threaten to stop using the service. The policy was scheduled to go into effect on January 23, 2017 and allowed Evernote employees to read users' notes. After receiving a lot of customer feedback expressing concerns about our upcoming Privacy Policy changes over...

Some users of Evernote have threatened to stop using the note-taking service after the company announced a new privacy policy scheduled to go into effect on January 23 that allows employees to read customers' notes. The policy changes are related to machine learning algorithms, says Evernote, which are being tested on user content that the company has accumulated since going into operation....

Mozilla and Tor have published browser updates to patch a critical Firefox vulnerability used to deanonymize users (via ArsTechnica). Privacy tool Tor is based on the open-source Firefox browser developed by Mozilla, which received a copy of the previously unknown JavaScript-based attack code yesterday. Mozilla said in a blog post that the vulnerability had been fixed in a just-released...

Facebook has agreed to pause data collection from WhatsApp users in the United Kingdom following a government probe into the company's privacy policy (via Engadget). Back in August, Facebook-owned WhatsApp updated its terms of service and privacy policy to reflect that it would begin sharing select data with the social media network, including the phone number a user verifies during the...

Yahoo secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information at the behest of U.S. intelligence authorities, according to people familiar with the matter. Reuters spoke to three former Yahoo employees who revealed the existence of the custom code, apparently written in compliance with a classified U.S. government demand. The program...

Facebook has announced that the rollout of cryptographic features for its massively popular Messenger chat service has completed, bringing end-to-end encryption to the largest messaging network in existence. Back in July, the social network company said it was testing the privacy feature on a limited basis which would eventually be rolled out to all 900 million users of the app. On Tuesday,...

Apple CEO Tim Cook drew cheers from a Salt Lake City audience on Friday as he reiterated the company's unwavering commitment to encryption and privacy protections for its customers, according to local media reports. The comments were made during a Q&A session at the yearly meeting of the Utah Technology Council (UTC), a trade and advocacy group representing more than 5,000 technology and...

Conversations in the Messages app feature end-to-end encryption that makes the content of the messages impossible to decipher, but according to documentation found by The Intercept, Apple tracks who its customers send iMessages to and is able to hand that information over to law enforcement when compelled to do so through a court order. When a text message is sent to someone, the Messages app...

Apple and other companies today filed friend-of-the-court briefs to support Microsoft in its legal fight with the U.S. Department of Justice. Microsoft's lawsuit is aimed at striking down a law that prevents companies from telling customers about government data requests, reports Reuters. Apple joined a wide array of companies to support Microsoft, including Fox News, The Washington Post,...

With the announcement of iOS 10 at WWDC on Monday, Apple mentioned its adoption of "Differential Privacy" – a mathematical technique that allows the company to collect user information that helps it enhance its apps and services while keeping the data of individual users private. During the company's keynote address, Senior VP of software engineering Craig Federighi – a vocal advocate of...

The United Kingdom's House of Commons this week passed the controversial "Investigatory Powers" bill, which gives spy and government agencies the ability to "engage in bulk surveillance and computer hacking," and has met stern opposition from various technology companies, including Apple. In the House of Commons, the bill passed by a vote of 444 to 69 (via Bloomberg). The original wording of...

Facebook is planning to introduce an optional end-to-end encryption mode for its Facebook Messenger chat platform, currently used by more than 900 million people, reports The Guardian. Citing sources "close to the project," The Guardian says the encryption will be an opt-in feature because turning it on will impact some of the new machine learning features being built into the Messenger app...

Norway-based company Opera Software has integrated a virtual private network (VPN) feature into the latest developer version of its free Opera web browser for OS X. A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel from the user's computer to the VPN server, hiding browsing activity from other users on the local network and enhancing security and privacy online. A VPN shields a user's real IP address,...

As Apple's battle with the FBI and Department of Justice appears to have hit a crescendo, with the Tuesday hearing between the DoJ and Apple having been postponed, Reuters has published a new report outlining how a team of "policy czars" has impacted Apple's data collection policy and restricted Siri and iAd in the process. Unlike Google, Amazon and Facebook, Apple is loathe to use customer...

Privacy campaigners held organized rallies across the US yesterday to protest the FBI's demands that Apple unlock the iPhone at the center of its San Bernardino shooter investigation. Following on from limited protests in California last week, rallies extended from Albuquerque to Washington DC to support Apple's insistence that complying with the bureau's demands risked compromising the...

The U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing additional court orders that would force Apple to help federal investigators extract data from twelve other encrypted iPhones that may contain crime-related evidence, according to The Wall Street Journal. The revelation comes nearly one week after a U.S. federal judge ordered Apple to assist the FBI with unlocking an iPhone belonging to suspected San...

Shortly after Apple was ordered to help the FBI recover data from the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, Apple quickly said they would oppose the order, garnering the support of other major tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft. In a new interview with the Financial Times, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has instead backed the FBI, denying that they are asking for a back door. ...

Apple has shared a new Q&A page that explains why the company is opposing a court order to create a unique version of iOS that would bypass security protections and allow the FBI to unlock an iPhone via brute-force attack. Apple says the objection is "absolutely not" based on the company's concern for its "marketing strategy," as the U.S. Department of Justice opined last week, but rather...

FBI Director James Comey has written an editorial to respond to concerns that the agency's demands of Apple in the ongoing San Bernardino shooter case undermine privacy rights and threaten future security efforts. "The San Bernardino litigation isn't about trying to set a precedent or send any kind of message," Comey said in an op-ed piece that appeared on the Lawfare blog late Sunday. "It is...

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed that it worked with San Bernardino County government officials to reset the iCloud account password on an iPhone belonging to suspected terrorist Syed Farook, according to a press statement obtained by Re/code. Apple told reporters on Friday that the Apple ID password associated with Farook's iPhone was changed "less than 24 hours" after...