Privacy Tips

How to grant or deny access to your location with iOS 6 privacy controls

By Allyson Kazmucha, Wednesday, Oct 10, 2012 a 12:18 pm

iOS 6 brings with it granular privacy controls so you can now fine tune exactly what built-in and App Store apps can access your location and share it on a pre-app basis. If you prefer not to have any apps accessing your location, you can disable location services altogether. If you don't want your favorite Twitter app to locate you, you can turn it off while still allowing your Weather app or the Camera access.

How to grant or deny access to your contacts with iOS 6 privacy controls

By Allyson Kazmucha, Thursday, Sep 27, 2012 a 9:47 am

iOS 6 brings a lot of new features with it, including granular Privacy controls in Settings. Given previous controversies surrounding apps accessing your contacts, it's important to make sure that only apps you specifically allow have access to your contacts, and only for as long as you allow it. With Privacy, you can grant and revoke permission to access your contacts at any time.

How to delete your Google search Web History

By Rene Ritchie, Wednesday, Feb 22, 2012 a 6:04 pm

Google can keep track of everything you've ever searched for using their Web History service, even if you've cleared the browser history on your iPhone, iPad, or PC. Now that Google is changing their privacy policy -- which some view as an excellent simplification and standardization and others see as a disturbing data grab -- it means your search results won't be kept separately but potentially shared with each and every other Google service.

Prudent parenting in the age of digital photography

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Dec 2, 2011 a 8:35 pm

David Barnard of App Cubby has a great post up, sharing his thoughts on how to responsibly handle things like GPS geo-location information in photos, to protect his children's privacy while not giving into technophobia or paranoia.

What’s even more alarming is that most of my photos are taken with an iPhone, which means they have GPS data embedded. I’ve always been leery of the cost and security implications of backing up photos online, so short of my computer having been hacked none of those photos have ever been exposed online. But now with iCloud and other automatic backup solutions, any photo I take is uploaded almost instantly.

Daily Tip: How to turn off GPS geo-location for iPhone photos, protect your privacy

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Dec 2, 2011 a 8:25 pm

Curious how to turn-off the GPS geo-location information your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad can store in the photos you take? Geo-location can be a handy feature to keep track of where you took travel photos, but it can also raise privacy concerns, especially if you ever lose your iOS device, or someone decides to start tracking you -- or your child -- via pictures posted online.

iOS will ask you to opt-in to the location for the Camera app the first time you launch it, but if you later change your mind, it's simple to opt-out of and turn off.

Daily Tip: How to make sure you've opted-out of Carrier IQ-style diagnostics on iPhone

By Rene Ritchie, Thursday, Dec 1, 2011 a 2:56 pm

iOS 5 on the iPhone has Carrier IQ-style diagnostic information sharing turned off by default, but as part of the on-device setup process, asks you if you'd be willing to opt-in and share the data with Apple. If you did that, or aren't sure what you did, but now want to make sure you're opted out of anything even remotely Carrier IQ-esque, here's how to do that.

Daily Tip: How to remove your Wi-Fi access point from Google’s location database

By chrisoldroyd, Monday, Nov 28, 2011 a 10:24 pm

Google is collecting information from Wi-Fi access points from all over the world to enable it to speed up location services. Unfortunately it is gathering this information and maybe more, without the consent of the owners of the access point.

What’s more, Google is not only gathering data from public Wi-Fi access points but also from home and business users too. If you value your privacy, there is a way to stop Google recording your Wi-Fi access point’s location information. It’s reasonably straight forward to implement.