- Is someone tracking your iPhone right now?
If they are your privacy, your data,
and most importantly your personal safety are at risk.
- They could be recording your screen,
spying on you through the camera or using Bluetooth devices
that sound like something out of a "James Bond" movie.
- From jealous lovers to overzealous companies,
we'll talk about the real ways iPhones get tracked
and had to shut that down for good.
- First let's talk about people
who may be tracking you using iPhone features
that are designed to share your location.
- The first one, Share My Location.
- Open Settings, scroll down and tap Privacy and Security.
Then tap Location Services, then tap Share My Location.
- Make sure there isn't anyone here
who doesn't need access to your location.
- To stop sharing your location with someone
tap on their name and then tap stop sharing my location.
- Next up the Find My App,
which has a feature that can notify other people
when your location changes.
- Let's close out of settings open Find My
and tap on the me tab
in the lower right hand corner of the screen
then look for a notifications about you section.
- If you don't see this section on your iPhone,
don't worry about it.
You're not sending your location to anyone.
If you do see notifications about you,
you can tap on the person's name
to see more about what's being shared with them.
- And we bet you didn't know this to prevent theft,
your iPhone remains fineable through the Find My Network
for up to 24 hours after it's powered off.
- When you turn off, Find My you think you'd be safe,
but there is a way to turn it off immediately
if you need to.
- [Host] When you go to turn off your iPhone.
- [David] So I will press and hold the side button
and the volume down button.
- [Host] Tap on iPhone findable after power off
underneath the power slider, okay?
- [David] And then it says iPhone
remains Findable after power off
and you can choose temporarily turn off finding.
- It's also possible somebody
is tracking you through the map app using ETA sharing.
Let's close out of fine my and open the Map app.
Then swipe up and tap on the more button next to recents
and then tap on the information button
next to one of your favorites
and here you'll see share ETA and you'll be a list of people
who can see your ETA
when you're going to one of your favorites.
- You might not even know these features exist
as part of researching this video.
I learned a bunch.
- I don't use Apple Maps because I think it sucks.
I use Google Maps and it's also possible
somebody is tracking you in that app.
Let's close out Apple Maps,
open Google Maps and tap on your account icon
in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
Then tap on location sharing
and if you're sharing your location with people,
they'll show up here.
- Before we talk about the signs
that someone is tracking you without your knowledge,
give this video a thumbs up.
It helps us out a lot.
- One of the first big signs is increased data usage
because they're collecting data on your iPhone
and sending it somewhere else.
To check the data usage on your iPhone
let's close out a Google Maps, open up settings,
then tap cellular and look at the cellular data usage
during this current period.
- The current period doesn't correspond
to anything except for the last time
you reset these statistics.
So if you scroll all the way to the bottom of this menu,
there is a reset statistics button
if you want to you can reset the statistics
and then track your data usage from there.
- Another sign someone is tracking you
is increased battery usage
or there could be an app on your iPhone
that's draining all of your battery life.
To check, let's head back to the main page of settings,
scroll down and tap battery
and then take a look at your usage over the last 10 days,
are there any unexpected spikes in your battery usage?
- If there are or you see an app up here
like Spy on my Spouse, yeah, then that's a red flag.
- Yeah, you can scroll down
and just take a look at which apps
are using the most battery life.
- If your iPhone is heating up
even when you're not using it, that's another red flag.
It's normal for your iPhone to heat up
when you're playing a 3D game for instance.
But if it's happening all the time,
that means that there's some process
running in the background
and that process could be tracking you.
- The next is screenshots on your phone
that you didn't take it's possible
somebody is recording your screen, taking those screenshots
and sending them off somewhere else.
To check, let's close out of settings,
open photos and then scroll down
and tap on the screenshots album
and you'll see a list of all your screenshots.
Look for anything out of the ordinary.
- The other place to check
is in the screen recordings folder
people could be recording your screen too.
- [Host] Let's tap back upper left hand corner
of the screen,
tap on screen recordings and look for anything
out of the ordinary.
- And if you see a bunch of screenshots of the clock
or your home screen, just join the rest of us
and know that you're accidentally taking them
in your pocket.
- A couple other signs,
maybe your phone is just waking up and randomly making noise
when you're not doing anything or it's turning off
and back on on its own.
- Both of which,
and a lot of these can be signs of software issues,
not necessarily that you're being tracked.
- The next red flags that the camera or microphone
are in use even when you're using apps
that don't require the camera or microphone.
Fortunately Apple built in a really cool way
to see if they're being used right now.
So as you can see in the upper right hand corner
of my phone right now,
I've got that nice orange dot
'cause we're doing the screen recording
and the microphone is in use.
If you see one of these dots,
you can open control center by swiping down
from the upper right hand corner of the screen
and tapping on the microphone at the top of the screen.
Right now it says the system is using my microphone.
- We know why, but if you don't know why,
then that could be a major red flag.
- Another red flag is hearing weird noises on phone calls.
That's a sign that your phone might be being tapped.
- It happened in the "Crown" and it happens today too.
The next red flag is if screen time
and content privacy restrictions
are enabled on your iPhone without your knowledge
and if they are, that can inhibit your ability
to change some of the settings
we're gonna talk about later in this video.
- [Host] Let's head back into the settings app,
tap back to the main page of settings,
then tap on screen time,
tap content and privacy restrictions
and look at the switch next to content
and privacy restrictions.
- This is great for kids,
but if this is on without your consent, turn the switch off.
- I'll tap the switch and turn it off
and I have to enter my screen time passcode.
This passcode might not be the same as the passcode
of your iPhone.
- If you don't know what it is
and you don't know who set it up, huge red flag.
And before we talk about the settings you need to change,
there's one more red flag.
Check the list of apps that are installed on your iPhone
and look to see if there's anything nefarious.
- Yeah, let's tap back to the main page of settings
and then scroll down to your list of apps.
Just take a look through here,
make sure there's nothing in here you don't want,
like spouse Spire 2.0.
- 2.0.
- Let's talk about some of the settings to check in change.
The first is email forwarding.
This is a feature
that is offered by pretty much every email provider.
How do you know your emails
aren't being forwarded without your knowledge?
- We can't walk you through every single email provider
in this video,
but we are gonna talk about the two most popular ones
on an iPhone.
So we'll start with Gmail and then we'll do iCloud.
- We're gonna use a computer for this
'cause it's easier on a website than it is on your phone.
- I'm on gmail.com.
I'm gonna click the settings gear
in the upper right hand corner of the screen
and then click see all settings
Then I'll tap forwarding and POP/MAP.
And if you see the forward to copy of this email
to anything is there that you don't expect,
just choose disable forwarding here
and then at the bottom choose save changes.
Next up iCloud, I'll tap on mail
and then in the upper left-hand corner of the screen
I'll tap that setting skier and then tap preferences
and then right here in the middle is the forwarding section.
If you see forward my email too.
And then an email address that you don't recognize,
uncheck that box tap done
in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
- Next, let's talk about text message
or iMessage forwarding.
Somebody could be tracking you by having your iMessages
and text messages sent to a device you weren't aware of.
In the settings app, scroll down and tap on messages
and scroll down and tap text message forwarding
to make sure only the devices that are selected
are ones that you want your messages being forwarded to.
- And you have to be careful of regular text messages
and MMS messages too because those often appear
on a phone bill
and they can be accessed through your carrier.
- Next up is Reed Receipts,
this lets people know when you've read their text message.
To turn them off,
tap back in the upper left hand corner of the screen,
one below text message forwarding
is send read receipts, turn that switch off.
- And if you're enjoying this video,
please subscribe to our channel.
It helps us out a lot.
- Just like with text,
we wanna make sure our phone calls
aren't showing up on other devices.
Let's tap back to the main page of settings
one above messages is phone, tap on that.
Then tap calls on other devices
and just look at this list of devices.
Make sure your calls aren't forwarding
anywhere you don't want them to be.
- And while we're here in settings,
we need to make sure that your calls aren't being forwarded
to a number that you don't control.
- Let's tap back to phone
and let's look in this list for call forwarding.
- That's why we've brought this phone in here in the center
it's a different carrier,
so different settings can show up in these menus.
This one's on tangle open settings,
and I'll scroll down to the phone app, tap on that,
and then I have call forwarding here.
I'll tap on that and I have a switch here
that I could turn on.
If it was on on your phone,
then you could turn off that switch.
But even if you don't see call forwarding,
that doesn't mean that call forwarding isn't enabled
with your cell phone carrier.
Fortunately, there's an easy way to turn it off
that works on AT&T and Verizon and T-Mobile
and a slew of other carriers.
- Let's close that of settings.
Open the phone app, go to the keypad and dial *73,
then press call.
- Verizon says that even if you just hear a tone,
which is what we've heard, don't worry about it.
It still means that call forwarding has been disabled.
- But don't be afraid to call your wireless carrier
just to make really sure your calls aren't forwarding
because some carriers have unique features.
- Like the ability to forward individual phone numbers,
two other phone numbers, not just every phone number,
and that's different than the star seven three things.
So you know the only way to really be sure is to call.
- Next, let's talk about AirDrop.
If everyone or contacts only are selected,
AirDrop can be an effective tool to see who's around.
To check your airdrop settings, open control center,
swipe down from the upper right hand corner of the screen,
press into this box in the upper left
and then tap on the AirDrop icon.
You can choose between receiving off contacts
only or everyone for 10 minutes.
- And with Iowa 16.2, Apple really shut down
your ability to be tracked
because everyone became everyone for 10 minutes.
This doesn't mean you can't airdrop things to other devices.
It means that other people can't airdrop things to you
and can't see your phone on their phone
when they go to AirDrop something.
- Next, let's talk about keeping your history safe
in Safari and Maps.
You can clear all the browsing data
on your iPhone in settings.
Tap back to the main page of settings,
then tap Safari,
scroll down and tap clear history and website data.
Then tap clear history and data to confirm.
- The process for clearing your recent destinations and maps
is a little bit different.
- Yep, let's close out of settings.
Open up the Maps app and then swipe up.
Here you'll see your recent tab.
You can tap on more and then swipe right to left
to remove anything you don't want than just tap delete.
You can do the same with favorite locations.
Let's tap out of recents,
tap the more button next to favorites
and then swipe right to left on any favorites
you no longer need.
- The next way to stay safe online
is to use a private browsing tab in Safari.
- Let's close out of maps,
open Safari and tap on the tabs button
and lower right hand corner of the screen.
Then tap on 10 tabs at the bottom and tap on private.
Now you are in private browsing mode.
- No history, no website data,
no nothing that's gonna be saved after you close this tab.
- Next, we need to talk about airTags
and unfortunately they have been used as a stocking device.
Apple has built in some safeguards
now after some of the controversy,
but there are some things you need to know.
- First off,
there's a popup that appears to let you know
when an AirTag that doesn't belong to you
is found near you.
- To disable that unknown AirTag that might be tracking you.
Tap instructions to disable when the popup appears
on your iPhone.
Next, you should go into the Find My App
and see if there are any items that are being detected
with you.
So if I close out of Safari open Find My,
and then tap on the items tab.
Make sure there aren't any items here
that you don't recognize.
If there are, you can delete them by swiping right to left.
and then tapping on the trashcan.
- All these Apple security precautions are great,
but they only work on iPhone.
They don't work on Android smartphones.
So Apple built an app called Tracker Detect
that detects AirTags around you,
but it's kind of a pain in the butt to have to use it.
- But it does work.
Next, let's talk about Apple ID settings.
One of the first things you might wanna consider doing
if you think you're being tracked is change your password.
- And the easiest way to do it is on a computer.
Let's go to Apple id.apple.com.
I'll log in with John up phone and then go to password,
enter your old password and then a couple of new ones
that hopefully match and you'll be good to go.
- Then check your iPhone and see which devices
are connected to your Apple ID
and make sure there aren't any that shouldn't be there.
So we're gonna close out of fine my open settings
scroll up and tap on your Apple ID at the top of the screen
and here you'll see the devices connected to your Apple ID.
- If you see one that doesn't belong to you,
just tap on it and tap remove from account.
- Let's talk about our family sharing settings.
This includes a lot of stuff like shared calendars,
photo albums and Find My.
- But it's also a great way to track you
without your knowledge.
To check if you're in a family group,
open up settings and then tap family
at the top of the screen.
If you don't see that you're not in a family group,
you can see everybody in here who's in your family,
but as long as you're an adult,
you can also leave the family.
Tap on your name and then tap stop using family sharing.
But before you do know that as soon as you do this,
other family members are gonna get a notification
that says that you left.
So if you're trying to fly under the radar,
don't do this just yet.
- As David said,
that only works if you're in an adult role,
but someone who wants to track you
might add you as a child or a teen.
- And they do that by lying about your birthdate
when they create your Apple ID.
If somebody created your Apple ID
and you're at a child in here, major red flag.
- Lying about your birthday on the internet.
Next we're gonna talk about safety check.
Let's get there in settings first,
tap back to the main page of settings,
scroll down and tap privacy and security
and then scroll down and tap on safety check.
You have two options.
The first is emergency and reset.
Immediately reset access for all people and apps
and review your account security.
- Only, good for emergencies.
- And manage sharing and access.
Customize which people and apps can access your information
and review your account security.
- If you feel like your safety's in danger,
this is a good place to go and follow the instructions.
- Let's talk about one of the number one
most important privacy and security tips.
And that is turning on two factor authentication.
- Apple has gotten really good at this recently.
It kind of makes you sign up for two factor
before you can do a lot of things with your Apple ID.
- To turn it on, let's go back to the main page of settings
scroll up and tap on your Apple ID at the top of the screen.
Then tap password and security
and then look at two factor authentications.
So right now I have it on and when you turn it on,
you have I think it's two weeks to turn it off
before it's just on forever.
If it's not on on your iPhone, turn on that switch.
And while we're here in this section of settings,
let's talk about account recovery contacts.
- Recovery contacts are people
who can help you get back into your phone
if you accidentally lock yourself out.
But for that reason,
you need to make sure that your recovery contacts
are actually people you trust.
- So I'll tap on account recovery
and if you have any recovery contacts
and hear you no longer trust, get rid of them.
- And you can also get rid of your recovery keys
if you have any of those as well.
We talk a lot about passwords when we talk about security.
If somebody has access to your passwords,
they can get access to your accounts.
Unfortunately, you can't change your passwords
from the settings app,
but you can see a list of the passwords
that are saved on your iPhone.
- Let's tap back to the main page of settings.
Scroll down and tap on passwords.
So face ID in here,
and here's a list of all the passwords saved
on my iPhone right now.
- If you feel threatened,
a good way to lock someone out from your account
is to turn on two-step authentication for that account.
And most companies now are supporting it
because you can always say,
"Oh, it's just being proactive about security
when they get logged out on their end."
- We talked a lot about the jealous lover side of things.
What about the overzealous companies?
One of the first places to look is the app privacy report.
It's all taped back to the main page of settings.
Scroll up and tap on privacy and security
and then scroll down here to app privacy report
and tap on that.
- Now if you don't see anything in here,
it means you might not have turned on at privacy report
in the past.
Turn it on now in a few days
you'll have some data to come back and look at.
- This app privacy report is kind of disappointing,
but if you see a suspicious app or website in here,
it could lead you in the right direction.
Also, it just lets you see how ridiculous Facebook is
with its app network activity.
It's just off the charts.
- One of the settings we talk about
in our video about the iPhone settings to turn off now
is called significant locations,
which is a built-in tracker.
- Let's tap back upper left hand corner of the screen,
scroll up and tap on location services.
Then scroll all the way down and tap on system services
and then scroll down and tap on significant locations.
Face ID to get in.
We really recommend turning this switch off.
When it's on it saves a list of all the places
you visit most often,
and while that information is sort of secure,
if somebody gets into your iPhone,
they all of a sudden have a list of all the places
you visit most often.
- On a map that shows exactly where you've been.
- The next thing we're gonna talk about is Lockdown Mode
and apples for this feature is pretty interesting.
It's hardened your devices against mercenary spyware
with Lockdown Mode.
- It's the most badass yeah sentence
I think Apple has ever written.
- To check out Lockdown Mode,
tap back upper left-hand corner of the screen,
back to location services
and back one more time to Privacy and Security.
Scroll down at the very bottom we have Lockdown Mode.
- This is something you'll only need to turn on
if you're the victim of a highly sophisticated cyber attack,
which Apple says only applies to a very select few people.
Am I part of that group? I think not.
- But if you do find yourself
the target of a highly sophisticated cyber attack,
come in here and turn on Lockdown Mode
when it is on your iPhone lot function
as it typically does apps, websites
and features will be strictly limited for security
and some experiences will be completely unavailable.
- Oh-oh.
- So what do we do if we think we're being tracked?
- Well, the first step is to always be ready
to take a screenshot or a screen recording
because that can be used as evidence.
- To take a screenshot if have an iPhone with face ID.
It's the volume up button
and the side button simultaneously,
little flash on the screen like a camera shutter,
that screenshot will appear.
- We also wanna take this one step further
and show you how to take screen recordings.
- So let's step back to the main page of settings.
The first thing you need to do is add screen recording
to control center.
So on the main page of settings, scroll up
tap control center,
and make sure that the screen recording control
is underneath your included controls.
If it's not, just come down to more controls,
tap the green plus button and then swipe down
the upper right hand corner of the screen.
We've got our screen recording control.
We can press and hold on that.
Maybe you want to get the microphone in there too,
and you can choose where it gets save too.
You probably don't wanna upload your screen recordings
to Facebook Photos app is your best bet
and then just tap start recording.
- Best iPhone screen recording tutorial ever just then.
When you're being tracked a lot of the time
there's an app running in the background of your iPhone
that's tracking you.
- We talk about how to enable developer mode
in our video about clearing system data on your iPhone
that's in a card above and in this section
below the subscribe button.
- So rather than walk you entirely through the process
during this video,
I'm just gonna show you where to look
once it's already set up.
I've already opened Xcode.
I'm gonna tap the Xcode menu
in the upper left hand corner of the screen,
go to open developer tool and open instruments,
which is a fun little utility.
Then I'm gonna go to Activity Monitor, open that up,
and then I'm gonna choose the device I want to debug,
which is David's.
I'm just gonna take a look at all the processes
on his phone.
So David, would you use your phone a little bit?
- All right,
- So we're taking a live look
at all the things that are going on in the background
of David's iPhone,
and if you look at the CPU usage column
and you also look at the memory usage column,
you could be pretty sure that someone who's tracking you
is using an app that's using a lot of CPU
or a lot of memory.
- Take a look through the process list,
see if anything sketchy is standing out.
- Likes Spouse Tracker app or Spy on my Husband 3000
or yeah, track my wife, where's she at?
- Phone Tap pro.
- Yep. Any of that stuff.
There are gonna be a lot of things
that you won't recognize unless you're a professional,
but don't worry about those things.
It's really just the Tracker apps.
- We do want to emphasize this is almost certainly overkill
and it's not worth going out and buying a Mac to try it out.
- If you're pretty sure you're being tracked
and you don't know how to stop it,
a safe bet is to factory reset your device.
- Usually we recommend restoring from an iCloud backup.
In this case we don't because that backup
could bring back the malicious app,
causing the problem on your iPhone.
To factory reset your iPhone,
tap back to the main page of settings, tap general,
scroll down and tap transfer or reset iPhone
and then tap erase all content and settings.
- A question we're asked a lot is,
should I install antivirus software on my iPhone?
- No.
- You don't need it on your iPhone.
The app store is very secure.
- Also, the antivirus apps,
they can sometimes get pretty expensive with the plans
and all they'll do is just slow down your iPhone.
- Yeah, they really want to take your fear of viruses
left over from your Windows days
and transpose it onto your iPhone totally different things.
- You don't need antivirus software.
Just like you don't need to JailBreak your iPhone.
- JailBreaking your phone
removes all the security features
that keeps your data safe on your iPhone.
So if you jailbreak it,
yes, you might be able to play an Nintendo game,
but yes, a hacker can steal all your information
and you would have no idea.
- Next up, check out our video about the number one
iPhone privacy mistake you might be making right now.