When it comes to the best iPhones, plenty of people think there's very little to worry about when it comes to security — but this couldn't be further from the truth.
From biometric data to personal login details, the phone you carry everywhere with you is a treasure trove of personal information that could be compromised by the phone settings enabled by default.
Though many people don't bother to drill down into the details when it comes to their iOS settings, it's worth knowing how your phone operates, what data it uses, and what the risks come with enabling each option.
The five settings below are particularly important to pay attention to, because leaving them enabled by default could become a huge security problem if your phone is hacked or lost.
1. Automatic Wi-Fi
Intended to save you the trouble of having to manually open Settings to join free networks while you’re away from your home network, the Automatic Wi-Fi feature will automatically join a network you've connected to previously or ask you to join a free network while you’re out and about.
This means your phone could connect to a fake Wi-Fi hotspot set up to impersonate a network you've previously connected to. While the chances of this happening are quite slim, it's still a possibility. Hackers often lure people to connect to unsecured networks by giving them similar names to legitimate ones so, when in doubt, this is a setting that's best to disable altogether.
Go to Settings > Wi-Fi > Auto-Join and change it from Ask which is enabled by default to Off if you don't want to take any chances.
2. Location Services
While there are some apps that clearly require your location data in order to function, say, Maps or Uber, others may not actually need to know where you are. And you shouldn’t just give out that data to any app that asks.
Why? Because data breaches happen all the time and just like you wouldn’t shout your home address in a crowded public location, you shouldn’t share your personal information just because an app asks for it.
With your iPhone's location data, you have the ability to give apps the option to access it Always, Ask Next Time Or When I Share, While Using the App, or Never. And you can toggle an app's level of access to this data at any time in Settings.
Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services. Then select the app and the level of location data you feel comfortable with.
Extra credit tip: If you tap on an app, you will often also have the option to toggle off or on Precise Location which allows it to use your specific location. If you toggle this off, the app can only determine your approximate location.
3. App Track Transparency
This setting lets users see which apps are tracking them and what kind of data they’re privy to.
It’s called App Track Transparency and you’ll want to toggle off the option to “Allow Apps to Request to Track,” which initially sounds a bit confusing.
The text below the toggle button explains it a bit further and better: “When this is off, all new app tracking requests are automatically denied.”
Below the toggle button is a list of apps that have asked for permission to track your activity with an identifier.
Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking and toggle off Allow Apps to Request to Track to disable this feature entirely.
4. Personalized Ads
This is a setting that allows apps to collect data about your interests and browsing habits in order to deliver targeted ads to you.
Of all the things I do not want my apps doing, collecting my personal data in order to assist them in advertising to me is at the top of my list. The information on the Apple Advertising setting is specific in noting that turning this off does not reduce the number of ads you see, but does limit Apple’s ability to deliver relevant ads to you. Again, no need to share information here.
Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising and then toggle off Personalized Ads at the bottom of the screen.
5. Bluetooth
Bluetooth is great for lots and lots of things like my headphones and yes, it’s also great for my Fitbit, the home printer and the Silent Beacon personal panic button I’ve been testing. However, plenty of apps that ask for Bluetooth permissions don’t actually have any specific need for it — such as the likes of CVS or Facebook.
Again, given the number of issues with data breaches and leaks, there’s no need to share that information with any app unless it’s necessary – especially since it’s so easy to toggle off and on.
Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Bluetooth and from there, you can review which apps have Bluetooth permissions and toggle them off or on at any time.
While there are a lot of other options of settings you can adjust and toggle to keep yourself save, for example permissions for photos, contacts and calendars can all be toggled and adjusted just as easily as the Bluetooth setting, it's important to start somewhere. It doesn't hurt to tap around to get familiar with what each menu on your phone has on it, just to understand all your phones operations — particularly in the Privacy & Security section.
More from Tom's Guide
- Apple just released an emergency security update for a flaw used in an ‘extremely sophisticated attack’ — update your devices right now
- 240 million Windows 10 users are vulnerable to six different hacker exploits — protect yourself now
- FTC says Americans lost $12 billion to scams last year and these were the worst ones — here's how to stay safe
