In this video, we'll show you the best ways to take control of your privacy,
starting with removing metadata. What is metadata?
It's all the extra data attached to a photo you take on your iPhone,
like which of the back cameras it uses,
and a whole slew of other stuff that might be useful to you later,
or at least to professional photographers. Most of it is completely harmless,
but not all of it. When you take a photo,
one piece of metadata that's saved by default is the exact location the photo was taken.
If you're sending a photo of your cat to someone you don't know too well,
you don't want them to show up on your doorstep one day and run off with Fluffy.
So how do we shut that down? Let's open the Photos app.
Then we're going to tap Select in the upper right-hand corner of the screen
and select photos that we want to remove this location metadata from.
I was in the studio the other day, so I'll select these three photos that I took there.
Then I'll tap the three dots in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen,
tap Adjust Location, and then just choose No Location.
I'll tap on that. Metadata is gone.
To prevent yourself from having to do this in the future, though,
we can open Settings. So I'll swipe up from
the bottom of the screen and open Settings. Then I'll scroll down to Privacy and Security,
tap on that.
Then we're going to tap Location Services and scroll all the way down to Photos,
tap on that, and then under Allow Location Access, just choose Never.
Now you'll never have to worry about the Photos app betraying your location again,
but there is a cost to this. You won't be able to see where you took the
photos on the cool little map in the Photos app, but there is a happy medium if you're careful.
When you go to send a photo to someone, I'll head back to the Photos app,
then choose a couple of photos I want to send about these of the piano.
Then I'll tap Share in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen,
and you'll see that locations are included here at the top.
Just tap Options, then turn off the switch here next to Location,
tap Done, and now you can safely fire them off to whoever you want to.
And you can see here too, Location's not included. Next, we'll talk about camera and photo access.
The first time you open any app that deals with photos,
it will ask your permission to access those things on your phone.
It used to be kind of a yes or no question, now it's a little bit more nuanced.
So in the case of your photos, you can choose to allow access to all your photos
or limit an app's access to just some of them. Usually people don't think twice about
this setting, but do think twice. Think about how much access and trust you're
placing in an app with this setting. Because when you give an app
access to your entire library, that app could secretly be uploading all
of your photos or videos in the background. Now that may sound like a conspiracy
theory to you, but it isn't. TikTok calls it pre-uploading, and you
agreed to it when you signed up for an account. Let's show you how to stop those apps,
including TikTok, from pre-uploading all your sensitive photos.
We're going to go back a couple menus, tap back to location services, and then back once more.
Now look at the photo section here of privacy and security and tap on that.
You can see here at the top an assortment of some of the photos
that are going to be shared with these apps. So I'm going to scroll down here to TikTok
and tap on that. And you can either
choose to give them no photo library access, which is great if you're not uploading TikToks,
or just choose limited access, and that's what I like.
I just choose that one video file to give TikTok access to,
because they really do steal your photos in the background.
Go through your list of apps. I'll tap back to photos and
make sure that all these permissions are set up the way you want them to be.
If you don't have a good feeling, let's say about threads,
having access to all of your photos, just tap on it and choose none.
You can always come back here and turn it back on if you need to.
Now, you can also do the same and I'll tap back to photos,
back to privacy and security with your camera and your contacts and all
these other things in here. In my opinion, photos is the most
dangerous option to leave on for all your apps because of what they might contain.
It only takes one to get you in trouble. And there isn't a warning when
your photos are being uploaded, like the warning you get if your
camera or microphone are being used by an app. People wonder why government phones aren't
allowed to use TikTok, but it is kind of obvious.
If they're uploading all your photos to their servers
and those photos have your exact location inside of them,
say goodbye to your operational security. Next, we're going to talk about
stolen iPhone protection. It'll help you protect your iPhone if
it's stolen by someone who knows your passcode. And as you can imagine, a lot of the time,
a thief might be someone close to you who knows it.
Before we talk more about how it works, let's head back to the main page of settings.
I'll tap back in the upper left hand corner of the screen
and we're going to scroll to face ID and passcode. Tap on that and I'll enter my passcode.
And let's just scroll down here to stolen device protection and tap on that.
If you haven't already, just tap here to turn on the switch next to stolen device protection.
Stolen device protection empowers biometric security like Face ID or Touch ID
to be the defender of certain important things like changing your Apple ID password
or when you want to access your other passwords or credit cards.
On top of this, when the setting is on, there's a one hour delay for making
any changes to critical security settings, which gives you enough time to lock your phone
remotely on iCloud.com if someone steals it. By default, in order to save you headaches,
stolen device protection only works when you're outside of your home or work,
but we can change it so it's on all the time. Just select always here under
require security delay. Normally, I like to have settings off when I make
a video so I can show you how to turn them on. In this case, because I have this setting on,
if I tap to turn off the switch, it's going to say a security delay is
required to change stolen device protection and it's going to last for one hour.
So it actually does work. Next, let's stick it to those apps
that like to track your activity, aka all of your apps.
Let's go back to the main page of privacy and security.
So tap back and back to the main page of settings, privacy and security,
and then tap tracking here and turn off the switch at the top here
next to allow apps to request to track. This stops apps from asking
you if you'd like to allow them to track you across other apps and websites.
This is great, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking that apps
aren't tracking us a hundred other ways because they are.
Obvious question, why is the setting allow apps to request to track,
not disable app tracking? And obvious answer is money.
Apple doesn't want to be sued if an app decides to violate their app store policies
and track you all over the place. So it's a request.
Speaking of requests, we have a cool PDF of all of the settings
we're talking about in this video. You can download it if
you become a channel member. Just tap the join button below the video
and hopefully yours won't fall on the floor. Up next, iPhone and watch analytics.
Let's go back to the main page of privacy and security
and scroll all the way down to analytics and improvements and tap on that
and then turn off everything in here. I'm going to turn off share iPhone and
watch analytics. So we'll turn
off data collection on your Apple watch. Okay, share iCloud analytics and everything
else is already off for me. This stops your iPhone from
potentially over sharing your data with Apple and other third party developers.
And it also might save you a bit of battery life. And who doesn't want more battery life?
I mean, I've got 27% right now, but that's because I forgot to charge it last night.
So sue me. Generally,
I do trust Apple with my data more than pretty much any other company,
because if they screw up, they're going to lose a lot of money.
Other companies could just sell your information and then disappear.
Next up, let's stop those eerily personal ads you see in the App Store,
in Apple News, in the Stocks app, and in the Apple TV app.
But it's not like Apple is really tracking you all that much.
I mean, they're only getting information about you in the following ways.
If that seems like a lot to you, well, it is. Let's tap back to privacy and security.
Tap back in the upper left hand corner of the screen
and then tap here on Apple Advertising and turn off the switch next to personalized ads.
This will not only stop the ads that seem a little bit too personal,
it'll also potentially show you fewer ads. The less advertisers know about you, the less
they're going to spend to get your attention. My advice with regard to tracking is to just
imagine someone is always looking over your shoulder watching how you use your phone.
They can't see you or hear you because that would be like
always using the camera or microphone in your phone to spy on you.
But how much could someone learn just by looking at the posts you linger on in Facebook
for more than a second or two? Remember, an app like Facebook or TikTok,
you're the product whose attention they're selling to advertisers.
Next up, mail privacy protection. Have you ever received an email
from a mailing list? Of course you have.
But did you know that companies hide invisible tracking pixels inside the emails they send you
that invisibly collect information about how you're engaging with their emails?
Let's put a stop to them with this next setting. We'll head back to the main page of settings.
I'll tap back in the upper left hand corner of the screen and then back again to settings.
Then scroll down to mail, tap on that. Then under the messages category here,
tap on privacy protection to open it up
and then turn on the switch next to protect mail activity.
Now LL Bean doesn't know you opened their email about holiday sweaters
so they can't send you a thousand more emails about their stupid holiday sweaters.
This next setting is for people who really need to make sure the person they're messaging
is who they say they are. For instance, if you're in a
country with an oppressive government and you want to talk to a reporter,
you want to make sure that it's them and not the KGB that you're texting.
Let's head back to the main page of settings. I'll tap back in the upper left hand corner
of the screen then back again to settings. Scroll all the way to the top of the screen.
Then tap on your name. Then scroll all the
way to the bottom of this menu. Then tap on contact key verification.
Before we turn it on, I want to explain what this is
and why you should only turn it on as a last resort.
Contact key verification is a feature introduced in iOS 17
that assigns a unique code to your Apple ID. You give that code to other people
and then they use it to verify that they're texting you and not an imposter.
Turn on verification in iMessage. Isn't this what caller ID is for?
Yes, but caller ID can't be trusted. I used to install phone systems for businesses.
Back in the day, I remember setting up caller ID for them
and I could just choose any number I wanted to, which was crazy.
I actually tried it once, probably wasn't supposed to,
but pretended I was my mom, called my dad. True story.
Next, we'll tap back to Apple ID in the upper left hand corner of the screen.
Then back to settings and scroll down to privacy and security.
Tap on that and then tap to open up location services.
And it's super important to stay on top of this. Look through your apps for the word always.
So I'm going to scroll down here and if I'm looking through all my apps,
TGI Fridays always. Apps with the word
always mean this app can track your location and report it to its home base all the time,
even if you're not using the app. Let's change this.
I'll tap on TGI Fridays to open it up to either while using the
app or in this case, never. Not only will this protect your privacy,
it can also save a lot of battery life. I'll tap back to the main page of location
services settings, scroll all the way
to the bottom and tap on system services. In this list, turn off everything except
for emergency calls and SOS, find my iPhone, satellite
connection and system customization, and optionally compass calibration if you
like the little arrow to appear in your Maps apps. Fans of this channel are familiar with these tips,
but it's always important to check this section after an iOS update
because sometimes these switches like to go back to their default settings.
If you want a more in-depth breakdown of what these do,
we'll put a link at the end of the video so you can watch that one next,
but we're not done yet. Spring is right around the corner,
so let's do some spring cleaning for your account passwords.
Next, we'll tap back and then back again and back again to the main page of settings,
scroll down here to passwords, tap on that little face ID in,
then tap security recommendations at the top. We'll wait for this to load and
make sure the switch next to detect compromised passwords is turned on.
While we're here, if you've had this switch on for a while,
we can see a long list of sites where Apple thinks
I should change my passwords due to somebody else's data leak.
I think the target should have to come to my house and change all my passwords for me
if they were the ones who leaked it. Next, some new anti-tracking protection.
Last year, Apple introduced some cool new anti-air tag tracking features,
like one that lets you know when an air tag that doesn't belong to you
starts following you around. Now, actually not now, but in the near future,
thanks to a partnership between Google and Apple, you're going to be even safer.
The Find My app will scan for and alert you about any unregistered trackers in your location,
even ones that don't work with iPhones like this Samsung smart tag.
With this new feature, your iPhone will notify you if any of these devices are around,
tell you what they are, and tell you how to shut them down for good.
If you haven't become a channel member yet, click the join button below this video to
get that free checklist. There's a whole other
page too, actually two more pages, but I dropped them on the floor earlier.
Also, watch this video next. Thanks for watching.
Because there's a helicopter in the video, ladies and gentlemen!
You can definitely hear it.