Privacy and Security settings

Privacy and Security settings help you manage how much information you share across apps. Each data type shows how many apps are accessing that data, making it easier for you to find out and control how much information you’re sharing.

Passwords app

Safely store all your credentials, including current and historical passwords, verification codes and security alerts, with end?to?end encryption in the Passwords app — and sync them all seamlessly across your devices.

Accessory Setup?Kit

Accessory Setup Kit allows app developers to offer an intuitive way to pair accessories while protecting information about your nearby Bluetooth devices. This lets you seamlessly pair Bluetooth accessories with greater privacy.

Locked and hidden apps

Help protect sensitive apps and the information inside them. Lock an app to require Face?ID, Touch?ID or your passcode for access. Information from the app doesn’t appear in other places across the system, including search results and notifications, to help prevent others from inadvertently seeing your sensitive information. And you can easily hide an app, which moves it into a hidden and locked apps folder.

Safety Check

This section in iOS Settings helps people in domestic or intimate partner violence situations quickly reset the access they’ve granted to others. It also helps you manage which people and apps you’ve given access to, and quickly disable your location settings and password?shares.

Sensitive Content Warning

Sensitive Content Warning helps you avoid seeing unwanted images and videos that may contain nudity by initially blurring them. It works in Messages, with AirDrop files, in FaceTime video messages, and in the Phone app when receiving a Contact Poster. This feature is optional and you can turn it on in Privacy & Security settings. All image and video processing occurs on your device, meaning that neither Apple nor any third party gets access to the content.

Privacy Nutrition Labels

Product pages on the App?Store feature a section that provides developers’ self?reported summaries of some of their privacy practices in a simple, easy?to?read label. This shows how developers are collecting and using your data, including information like your location, browsing history and contacts. This is part of ongoing work to increase transparency and control over your data, and Apple will continue to update this feature and work with developers to ensure that users can make informed choices.

App?Tracking?Transparency

Your devices carry the story of your life. We believe you should have a choice in how apps track and share your data with other companies for advertising or with data brokers.

Starting with iOS?14.5 and iPadOS?14.5, apps are required to ask your permission when they want to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies. You can change your preference for any app or prevent apps from asking for permission entirely in Settings.

App Privacy Report

See at a glance what your apps have been up to when you turn on App Privacy Report. A section in Settings shows how often your location, photos, camera, microphone and contacts have been accessed during the last seven days. It also reveals which domains apps have contacted. Together with Privacy Nutrition Labels, this feature gives you a more complete picture of how the apps you use treat your privacy.

Pasteboard permission

Apps need to get your permission before accessing the pasteboard to paste content from another?app.

Third-party apps and permissions

Apple gives you transparency and control over the data you share with apps. Apps may request access to things such as your location, contacts, calendars or photos. You’ll receive a prompt with an explanation the first time a third-party app wants to use this data, so you can make an informed decision about granting permission. Even if you grant access once, you can always change it later in Settings. You can also decide which contacts to share with an app, rather than giving it access to all your contacts. iOS and iPadOS require developers to get your permission before tracking you or your device across apps and websites owned by other companies for ad targeting, for ad measurement purposes, or to share your data with data brokers.

Mic and camera controls

No app can access the microphone or camera without your permission. In iOS?14 and iPadOS?14 or later, when an app uses the microphone or camera, your device displays an indicator to let you know it is being used — whether you are in the app, in another app or on the Home?Screen. And Control Centre shows you when an app has recently used the microphone or camera. In iOS and iPadOS, access to the camera is disabled for an app when it is in the background. Sometimes apps need to know what other devices are on your local network, like when you’re trying to connect to a smart TV or printer. Starting with iOS?14 and iPadOS?14, apps need to ask your permission before scanning your local network. iOS and iPadOS also let you know when an app accesses your Clipboard, so you can confirm that it receives access to only the items you expect.

Data and privacy information

Data and privacy information screens make it easy to understand how Apple will use your personal information before you sign in or start using new features. When you see the Data and Privacy icon, you’ll find helpful information on what personal data may be shared and how it will be used to improve your experience.

Location data

Sometimes it’s useful for your device to know your location, like when you’re setting up meetings in Calendar or getting directions. Location Services on your device uses a combination of GPS, Bluetooth, and crowd-sourced Wi?Fi hotspots and mobile phone masts to figure out where you are. Apple gives you control over the collection and use of this location data on all your devices. Starting with iOS?14, iPadOS?14 and watchOS?7, you can choose whether apps have access to your approximate location — an area of about 10 square miles — rather than your precise location. Location Services is not on by default. You can enable it when you first set up your device, and you can always turn it off if you change your mind.

Data and Privacy page

To give you more control over your personal information, we provide a set of dedicated privacy management tools on your Data and Privacy page. These tools give you the ability to get a copy of your data, request a correction to your data, deactivate your account or delete your account.

Analytics

If you choose to opt in, your iOS and iPadOS devices can collect analytics about your device and any paired Apple?Watch and send it to Apple for analysis. This analysis helps Apple improve products and reduce problems like apps crashing. The collected information does not identify you personally and can be sent to Apple only with your explicit consent. Analytics may include details about hardware and operating system specifications, performance statistics, and data about how you use your devices and applications. When it’s collected, personal data is either not logged at all, removed from reports before they’re sent to Apple, or protected by techniques such as Differential Privacy.

The information we gather using Differential Privacy helps us improve our services without compromising individual privacy. For example, this technology improves QuickType and emoji suggestions, as well as Lookup Hints in Notes.

We identify commonly used data types in the Health app and web domains in Safari that cause performance issues. This information allows us to work with developers to improve your experience without revealing anything about your individual behaviour.

If you give your explicit consent to share iCloud Analytics, Apple can improve Siri and other intelligent features by analysing how you use iCloud data from your account, such as text snippets from email messages. Analysis happens only after the data has gone through privacy-enhancing techniques like Differential Privacy so that it cannot be associated with you or your account.

Advertising

Apple is committed to delivering advertising in a way that respects your privacy. Apple-delivered ads may appear on the App?Store, Apple?News and Stocks. The Apple advertising platform does not track you, nor does it buy your personal information from, or share it with, other companies. Your Apple?Pay transactions, Health app data and HomeKit app data are not used by the Apple advertising platform to deliver ads. Your App?Store search and download history may be used to serve you relevant ads. On the Apple?News and Stocks apps, ads are served based partly on what you read or follow. This includes the topics and categories of the stories you read and the publications you follow, subscribe to or enable notifications from. The stories you read are not used to serve targeted ads to you outside these apps. You can view the information Apple uses to deliver relevant ads to you in Settings. You can also turn off Personalised Ads at any time in Settings to stop receiving targeted ads on the App?Store, Apple?News and Stocks. Turning off Personalised Ads will limit Apple’s ability to deliver relevant ads to you but may not reduce the number of ads you receive. The Apple advertising platform doesn’t serve ads to children under 13 years old or to Managed Apple?Accounts. In addition, Apple has strong guidelines for apps in the Kids category of the App?Store, including prohibiting apps in the category from allowing third-party analytics or third-party advertising.