How to block ad tracking on your iPhone

In 2019, an article This Washington Post Fowle shocked the author by Geoffrey when he found out that many of his iPhone apps were collecting and uploading information about his usage while he was asleep.

As we all know now, data is a huge commodity nowadays. If you use a phone, laptop, or any other type of computing device (unless you’re a security expert or a high-end hacker with access to sophisticated blocking tools), you’re paying for your apps by contributing to marketing and other information. . The companies that supply them.

As Fower’s article has shown, iPhone users are not immune to this. Since their article was published, Apple Play has made some commendable changes to its privacy policies. But charging your own data is still a good idea. Here are some simple ways to reduce the amount of tracking that app vendors can do and the amount of data they can access.

Turn off personalized and location-based ads

According to Apple’s Advertising and Privacy Page:

Apple’s Advertising Platform does not track you, meaning it does not link user or device data collected from our apps with user or device data collected from third parties for the purpose of targeted advertising or ad measurement, and does not share user or device data with data brokers. . .

However, the page says that relevant data, such as information about your device, its location, your App Store search, and what you’ve read on Apple News can be collected. You can get around somewhat by turning off personal and location-based ads.

Turn off personalized ads

• Select your “Settings” app, tap on “Privacy” and scroll down and select “Advertising Pal Advertising” (it will be near the bottom of the list).
• Turn off Personalized “Personalized Ads”.

Turn off location-based ads

• Select “Settings”> “Privacy”> “Location services” (at the top of the display).
• Toggle “Location Services”.

On this page, you can change many of your apps, such as the App Store or Maps, to allow access to a location, don’t ask next time, or while using the app. Also, note that you can still use the “Find My Phone” feature; This will temporarily enable location services.

If you want to see how effectively your phone is protected, you can try the penopitical test provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It also monitors device fingerprinting, among other things. After following the instructions above I ran it on the Apple Plus iPhone 11, and I got a “partial security” result for blocking tracking ads, blocking invisible trackers, and preventing fingerprinting.

Lock down Safari

If you use the Safari browser on your iPhone, there are several things you can do to make it secure.

• Go to “Settings”.
• Select “Safari” and scroll down to the “Privacy and Security” section.
• Turn on “Stop cross-site tracking” (meaning advertisers and other third-party content providers cannot track you from one site to another).
• Turn on “Block all cookies”. Cookies collected by various websites may contain large amounts of information about how you use the site, what information you put into it, and so on. By blocking cookies, you prevent that data from being collected.

However, you will probably make things very uncomfortable for you. Your visit to the sites will not be recorded, so, for example, you will not be able to revisit a playlist or repurchase the same T-shirt you purchased last year. Some sites will refuse access even if you do not allow them to collect cookies. It’s your choice.

Close background app refresh

According to Apple Pal, the reason for turning on background app refresh is to “allow suspended apps (apps not currently active) to” check for updates and new content. ” According to Disconnect, the privacy application company, which Geoffrey Fowell cites in his article, also allows apps to collect marketable tracking data and transmit that app when you are not using the app. Interestingly, iPhones ship with background app refresh, but it’s not too hard to turn it off.

Grid view

• Go to “Settings”.
• Select “General”.
• Select “Refresh background app”.
• You’ll see a list of all the apps that use this feature, and they’ll all be turned on. Find “Refresh background app” at the top of the page and tap on it.
• You will be brought to a page that lets you enable Wi-Fi only, for Wi-Fi and cellular data, or you can turn it off together. Select “Off”.
• If you go back to the previous page, you will see that all the toggles for different applications have completely disappeared.

You may want to be selective about what apps might work in the background. Some apps may not work well otherwise. For example, Google Photos will not automatically back up your camera roll until this feature is enabled. So you can, if you wish, turn on “Background App Refresh”, and then choose which specific apps you want to toggle.

March 8, 2021, 5:00 pm ET Update: This article was originally published on May 30, 2018; Many parts have been updated to reflect the changes that have taken place in iOS.