If your smartphone always travels with you, it probably knows more about you than most people. It knows where you’ve been, when you’ve been there, who you messaged, and what you’ve searched for online.
As if this wasn’t worrying enough, the data you’re constantly generating can be sold onto third parties who’ll then bombard you with adverts in your emails and on social media. Or that data could be used by cyber criminals to target you or other people.
Here are four tips to help you improve the privacy and security of your iPhone.
Four tips to help keep your iPhone private and secure
As part of a recent update, Apple added some new security functions. And although iOS devices aren’t hit with as many hacks as Android ones, that doesn’t mean your iPhone is immune from attack. Put these four procedures in place to keep your iPhone private and secure.
1. Check app tracking
One of the most important features of iOS 14, which should significantly improve data protection for users, is the increase in transparency in app tracking. Since the new update, you will be asked which data protection settings should be made for each app when you install it. This applies in particular to the tracking of personal data by applications if they are only activated in the background. Of course, settings defined during installation can also be revoked at any time.
2. Disable location services
In the iPhone data protection settings, you can specify for each app individually whether it can query the location at any time, never or only when it is used. Depending on the application, you should decide individually whether it really needs your own location information. For some applications – such as the Find iPhone app – this is essential for the functioning of the app. With other applications, however, it is sufficient if they only know about the whereabouts of the user when they are actually in operation. The transmission of the location in the case of emergency calls always works independently of data protection settings.
3. Opt out of Apple advertising and analytics
In Settings, under Apple Ads, you can specify whether you want to allow Apple to serve personalized ads to you. This does not affect the amount of advertising shown, but opting out will result in less personalized data being collected from you. Another restriction on data access is switching off the transfer of iPhone analyses. Apple treats this data completely anonymously, but since this is a huge data set, deactivating it is on the safer side when it comes to iPhone data protection.
4. Deactivate WLAN and Bluetooth
WLAN and Bluetooth are of course helpful and necessary functions in every smartphone. However, this can also be used to obtain information about the device. For example, the location can be queried when the WLAN is active. Therefore, you should always deactivate these functions if you do not need them.
How to make a conference call on your iPhone
The simplest way to conference call from an iPhone is to dial 8300 to connect to ConferenceCall.co.uk and join using the PIN given by the call organiser.
To find out more about making a conference call from your iPhone, check out our guide on how to make a conference call.
