The Best New Privacy Features Coming to Your Mac, IPhone and IPad

Among the many new products, Apple announced a slew of privacy and security-related features at this week’s WWDC 2023 . Here are the best privacy and security features you can expect when you update your iPhone to iOS 17 or other Apple devices to the new operating systems released this fall.

Private browsing just got better in Safari

Safari will soon get even better at preventing websites from creating your unique profile. What’s more, when you use Private Browsing, Safari automatically locks and protects your browsing from prying eyes if you leave the Private Browsing tab or move away from your laptop. You will need to use biometric authentication or enter a password to unlock the browser again.

Better privacy with hyperlinks

Many websites try to track you by adding characters to the end of links. Some sites use this to determine if you landed on this page through certain search keywords, social networking sites, or a specific device. With upcoming software updates, Apple Mail, Messages, and Safari’s private browsing mode will automatically remove this tracking information.

App Privacy Improvements

Food privacy labels in the App Store let you see what data apps are collecting about you. This feature will get support soon as Apple will add information about data collected by third-party software development kits (SDKs) that apps also use — even if the app itself doesn’t collect any data, the SDK can. So.

Improved the privacy of calendar entries and photos.

Two more iOS 17 privacy features worth noting: When apps add calendar invitations to your iPhone, they won’t be able to see all of your other calendar entries, reducing the risk of seeing your calendar data. Similarly, the operating system has a new photo picker that will let you share specific photos with the app without having to open your entire library.

Improved protection against explicit content

iOS already has a “Communication Safety” feature that alerts kids when they send or receive nudity photos in the Messages app. In iOS 17, this feature will also send an alert if there is nudity in a video sent or received in messages. The new OS will also protect children from nudity when receiving content in AirDrop, FaceTime video messages, the Phone app (for contact posters), and the photo picker. Developers will be able to integrate this feature into their third-party apps as well.

Apple says that all photo and video processing for this feature happens on the device and that data is not sent to anyone. The company says these warnings are enabled for child accounts in Family Sharing plans, and that parents can turn them off if they choose.

All Communication Safety features are also available for adults. If you want to use this, you will be able to enable it in the privacy and security settings on your iPhone.

Apple says everyone will have the ability to blur explicit images in Messages, FaceTime, AirDrop, and the Phone app.

Selective data exchange in NameDrop

NameDrop is a feature in iOS 17 that makes it easy to share contact information with other iPhone or Apple Watch users. When you use this, you will be able to filter out contact information that you don’t want to share. For example, if your contact card lists a birthday, a wedding anniversary, two phone numbers, multiple email addresses, and your physical address, you’ll be able to select one or two contact details you’d like to suggest.

Fortified lock mode

Lockdown Mode is a feature built into iOS and macOS that helps protect those at risk from sophisticated cyberattacks. The feature is coming to your Apple Watch with watchOS 10, and Apple says it comes with improved security across all devices.

Apple TV will finally get VPN support

tvOS 17 received some improvements this year, most notably the long-awaited support for virtual private networks (VPNs). App developers can finally create VPN apps for Apple TV, which is very useful for a number of reasons. VPN functionality can help if you want to bypass geo-restrictions to watch your favorite shows or movies, or if you want to take advantage of the ad blocking and tracking prevention features offered by good VPN services. Until now, you could only use a VPN on your Apple TV by enabling it on your router.

However, you should be aware that some apps won’t work if they detect a VPN, while others may prevent you from accessing all the content you need. For example, some streaming apps won’t let you sign in if the VPN app is running in the background.

According to Mashable’s tech editors , these are the best VPNs for 2023:

• Express VPN : Convenient, feature rich, and available on multiple platforms ExpressVPN is a premium cybersecurity service (with applicable pricing).
• CyberGhost VPN : This friendly provider with a huge network has dedicated streaming, game and torrent servers and low fixed rates.
• NordVPN : NordVPN eliminates privacy concerns with double encryption, Onion Over VPN tool, and cloaked servers.

Use live voicemail to reduce spam calls

The Live Voicemail feature in iOS 17 lets you see a live transcript when a caller starts leaving you a voice message. Apple says that when Mute Unknown Callers is turned on, all unknown calls will go to live voicemail without ringing. If your operator identifies a call as spam, the call will be rejected immediately.