How to Disable iPhone Tracking and Data Sharing
A brief tutorial showing how to disable various tracking features, analytics sharing, and location services on iPhone.
Summary
Trevor Nace presents a tutorial on disabling iPhone tracking features that share user data with Apple and third parties. He demonstrates how to turn off cross-app tracking, disable analytics and diagnostic data collection, prevent targeted advertising data sharing, and restrict location services. The tutorial focuses on settings in the Privacy and Security section of iOS, arguing that most of these tracking features are enabled by default and provide benefits primarily to Apple and advertisers rather than users.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening and Introduction to iPhone Tracking
Trevor Nace: Did you know your iPhone is constantly tracking what you do on it? It's listening to you through the microphone. It's seeing your location from your iPhone and sending it to Apple and others. It's tracking your camera, and it's even tracking your messages, phone calls, and Siri. I'm going to show you how to turn all of those off to make sure essentially your iPhone is not able to track you and send that location and information to other people.
Accessing Privacy Settings
Trevor Nace: Now, let's hop out of here and we're going to open up the settings app on your iPhone. We'll do all of this in that settings app. And the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to scroll down from here and we're going to find the option that says privacy and security midway down. Tap on that.
Disabling Cross-App Tracking
Trevor Nace: Now, the first one is we'll check to see if any apps are tracking you from one app to another or one website to another. So from here, we're going to tap on tracking midway down. You can see that it says allow apps to access or track your activity across other companies or apps or websites. So essentially, this can track all of your activity, your actions, your email, your messages, all of that stuff, and share it between different companies. So if this is turned on, turn this off. And keep in mind, if there are any apps that request here, make sure to turn off all of those.
Analytics and Improvements Settings
Trevor Nace: Now, that's one thing that you want to do, but we also want to do several other things as well. So let's go back one and still in the privacy and security settings. We're going to scroll down here because at the very bottom, you'll notice we're going to do two different things. We're first going to tap on analytics and improvements.
And you'll see a bunch of different options for analytics. Potentially all of these are turned on or many of them are turned on. Now you can see at the very top, help Apple improve its products by sharing analytics about your usage and daily diagnostics. If you scroll down, handwashing. Improve handwashing by sharing limited motion and audio data. So every time you wash your hands, your iPhone is basically tracking you and listening in on you when you're in the bathroom.
You can see other stuff like improve health and activity. Essentially all of your workout and health related stuff, your approximate location, your heart related measurements if you have an Apple Watch on. It's sharing all of that with Apple. Again, essentially it's sharing all of your personal information. It's tracking everything.
Another crazy one, improve AR location accuracy. If this is turned on, it will track your location and the general buildings around you and all of that stuff. Pretty creepy stuff and stuff that I don't want to share with Apple or any other company. I would recommend turning off all of these so that it can't track your motion, your voice, what you're doing on your iPhone, where you are, all of that stuff. We should turn off all of that.
Apple Advertising Settings
Trevor Nace: But after you've done that, that's not the only thing. Let's go back one and also tap on Apple advertising right under there because you'll be able to see it's also tracking what you do on your iPhone and then selling that to companies to better target you for ads. Again, a lot of these are on by default. Essentially, it's making Apple more money so that they can track all of your usage on your iPhone and then sell it to companies like Meta or Google. Essentially, so they can target you better with ads.
So I would recommend highly turning this off. You don't necessarily need to share this. There's no added benefit for you on your iPhone by sharing that information, but there's a whole lot of added benefit so that they can sell you better products.
Location Services Configuration
Trevor Nace: Now that we've turned off all of those, let's go back and make sure they're not tracking your location as well. So go back one and let's scroll to the very top. You can see at the very top is location services. Just tap on location services here. And from here, we're going to scroll down. You can see a number of different apps that might be using your location. If you see that little arrow, that means it's used your location recently. And if it's an app that you don't want them to use your location, I would recommend tapping on it and then just switching it to never.
System Services Location Tracking
Trevor Nace: However, a big culprit is if you scroll down, you can see system services at the bottom. Tap on that. Now, you'll be able to see a bunch of different things associated with using or tracking your location on your iPhone and sending it to Apple. Now, there's some things that are legitimately useful like emergency calls or Find My in case you lose your iPhone, but there are lots of things that you don't necessarily need and essentially again don't help to protect your privacy.
So on stuff like Apple Pay merchant identification, you don't need to send them your location. You can do a bunch of different things and I would recommend turning off a bunch of different things. You can see essentially you can mimic what I've turned on and what I've turned off.
Significant Locations Feature
Trevor Nace: However, at the very bottom, a key one is significant location and routes. Tap on that. Essentially, what this does is it shares your location that you commonly are at. So your office, your work, your home, basically a friend's house or routes where you drive to and from frequently. It will share all that information with Apple again for no added benefit to you, but essentially allows Apple to track where you go.
I personally don't want a trillion dollar company to track where I go or where I commonly am at. So I'm going to turn that off and hit clear history.
Final Location Settings
Trevor Nace: After you've done that, you might want to go back out of here. Under product improvement, if any of these are turned on, improve location accuracy and maps. All of those I would recommend turning off.
Conclusion
Trevor Nace: Now that we've done those four really key things, your privacy is protected and you're not sending out all of your tracking information, personal information, all of that stuff to Apple and to other companies. I hope this helps.