Easy Ways You Can Secure Your Data and Privacy on iPhone

Easy Ways You Can Secure Your Data and Privacy on iPhone

Personal privacy and data have come to the fore once again, in large part thank to WhatsApp’s proposed policy changes. But whether or not you use WhatsApp, it’s still a good reminder to check your privacy settings on your phone, laptop and any website you sign up to.

For those with an iPhone, Apple has some suggestions.

Apple’s privacy tips

Apple’s focus on privacy has gradually introduced a range of ways to control the data on your phone.

Recently, Apple updated its ‘Tips’ app with a privacy collection, which is an easy way to learn about these settings. There are also a bunch of recommendations in Apple’s big old 20-page support guide.

But if you can’t be bothered to read any of that, here are some reminders of ways you can better secure your data on iPhone:

  • Sign in with Apple – You can use your Apple ID to securely create an account on some apps and websites without choosing a new password. You can do this where available by choosing ‘Tap Sign in with Apple‘.
  • Remember my password – Apple can log all your accounts in you iPhone and autofill them each time you visit a site. It can also generate a strong, hard-to-guess password when signing up for an account on a site and then store it for you.
  • Check your password security – Apple can keep track of your passwords and will alert you if one is leaked in a data breach. You can check for compromised, weak or duplicated passwords from your accounts via Settings > Passwords > Security Recommendations. 
  • Hide your message previews – If you’re not a fan of people reading your message notifications while you’re phone is locked there are ways to put a stop to that. In Settings > Notifications > Messages > Show Previews you can choose whether your messages show up on your lock screen. The same process goes for turning off your notification previews for other apps.
  • Share approximate location – Those share your location permissions can be incredibly annoying and dodgy. So if you don’t want an app knowing your exact location you can choose to share an approximate location instead. Go into Settings > Privacy > Location Services. You can then choose which apps you wish to change and toggle off Precise Location.
  • Hide your photos – If you don’t want certain photos in your camera roll appearing in your photo library or home screen widgets, iOS 14 has an option to hide these. To do this, click the select button in the bottom left corner of the photo and select hide. This will remove it from all other albums and place it in a ‘hidden’ album. You can remove photos from this album in the same way.

Apple has a lot of other ways you can fiddle with your privacy and data. Going through the privacy tab in your settings is a good place to start.

Personally the ‘check your password security’ was a game-changer for me. I’ve always been one to store my passwords in my iPhone but realising just how many of them were duplicates was a wake-up call.

You can check out more privacy recommendations on Apple’s website.


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