If you are one of the more than 1 billion Apple iPhone users in the world, it was a big day for you. On Monday, September 20, the tech giant unveiled iOS 15, the latest version of its smartphone operating system.
It offered important changes to how your phone will operate — from being able to make FaceTime calls to Android users to more sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to better identifying plants and animals in your photos, CNBC reports.
Among these updates are improved security protections. One feature of the update is “App Privacy Report,” which will notify you how often an app that is utilizing your location and your microphone over the past week. Additionally, it will let users be aware when apps are communicating back to their own servers. Those who pay for Apple’s popular iCloud have a feature called “iCloud Privacy Relay,” which will hide IP addresses, preventing your location from being revealed to unwanted third parties, CNBC adds.
While all of this should put you more at ease that your data is better protected than it had been through older operating systems, it doesn’t mean that you can take a back seat and not be proactive about enabling many of these new features.
Wired offers a comprehensive review of privacy settings you should change once you update your iPhone. Here’s an overview of some of their recommendations:
Block email tracking: There are still trackers that exist in the emails you send — they can be in the pixels that are situated in the footer, header, or body of emails, shooting back your information to the email sender. Wired says that Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection tool stops this. To set it up, go to Settings, Mail, Privacy Protection, and then turn on “Protect Mail Activity.”
Check up on your apps: Turn on the aforementioned App Privacy Report. Tap “Record App Activity” in Settings.
Hide IP addresses: In order to hide the sharing of IP addresses of the sites you visit, go to Settings, Safari, “Hide IP Addresses” and then turn on “Trackers and Websites.”
Apple’s authenticator: As is always a good idea when it comes to proper cybersecurity hygiene, make sure you utilize two-factor or multi-factor authentication for all online accounts you use. You can put in place verification codes for these two-factor authentication practices by going to Settings and then “Passwords.” You can set verification codes to autofill whenever you log on to Safari for web browsing on your iPhone.
Turn on iCloud Private Relay: To utilize the iCloud Privacy Relay if you’re a paying iCloud user, go to Settings, click on your name, go to iCloud, then turn on Privacy Relay.
As always, if you download a new operating system update on any device — and this recommendation is universal and can apply beyond Apple products — don’t just assume all of the new patches are automatically enabled. With any aspect of your personal data protection, you have to be vigilant.