I recently upgraded my phone to iOS 17. After the upgrade, there are many more guides in the settings that I didn't notice before. I found that I didn't enable many of the privacy-related configurations.
So, let me take a look at the privacy-related configurations in iOS. These configurations may have been added after iOS 17, or they may have existed before. Let’s turn them on as much as possible today.
Private Relay
This function is in "Apple ID => iCloud => Private Relay", which is equivalent to an official VPN provided by Apple. When browsing the web in Safari, it will use a proxy and provide two levels of jumps. The first layer is Apple's own servers, and the second layer is third-party servers, as shown in the figure:
Just turn it on in settings:
Advanced Data Protection
This function is in "Apple ID => iCloud => Advanced Data Protection". After turning on this option, the information saved on iCloud will be fully end-to-end encrypted:
In this way, even Apple officials cannot read your information on iCloud.
Hide My Email
This function is in "Apple ID => iCloud => Hide My Email". After turning on this configuration, you can generate some random @icloud.commailboxes. Emails sent to these email addresses will be forwarded to your primary email address:
This is equivalent to Apple's built-in anonymous email function, which is very convenient for registering on unreliable websites.
App Privacy Report
This function is in the "Privacy & Security" option and needs to be turned on manually:
After turning it on, we will be able to see how the applications use the permissions you have given them, which mainly include the following two contents:
Data & Sensor Access data and sensor access records, such as location, photos, microphone, address book, etc.
Network Activity network activity, you can see the domain name of the website visited by each application
This function is very effective for patients with privacy obsessive-compulsive disorder, allowing us to see what the applications on our mobile phones are doing.
Tracking
This feature is in the "Privacy & Security" option.
When we installed a new application before, the application would pop up a window asking whether to allow tracking. In fact, it allowed you to be tagged, so that the company or advertising alliance could identify specific users across apps and provide personalized ads.
Now we can not only prohibit the application from tracking us, we can even turn off "Request to Track" in the configuration center, so that there will be no pop-up windows. It is disabled by default:
Private WLAN Address and Limit IP Address Tracking
These two functions are used to hide your Mac address and IP address respectively in Wifi configuration:
After Private WLAN Address is turned on, your phone will generate a random Mac address, so that routers and network devices will not be able to locate a specific phone through the Mac address. I still remember that one year at the 315 Party, it was mentioned that public routes in some shopping malls would record the Mac address of the user’s mobile phone and mark the user, thereby providing services such as personalized advertising. Now turning this function on can avoid similar things.
When Limit IP Address Tracking is turned on, some known trackers will be prohibited from running in Safari and Mail. However, just turning on this option cannot completely prevent the IP address from being obtained. It also needs to be used with the Private Relay mentioned above.
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