Don’t Worry, the Apple Journal App Probably Isn’t a Privacy Nightmare
When Apple launched its Journal app in December, Lifehacker writer Khamosh Pathak called it a good gateway for anyone interested in digital journaling . Part of this simple barrier to entry is the Journal Suggestions feature: From time to time, the app sends you a notification recommending a journal entry based on something you’ve done recently, be it a trip you’ve taken or an activity you’ve undertaken. participation in.
In theory, this is a great way to encourage daily journaling. You might not think to write down your thoughts about dinner with friends or a weekend trip, but a little nudge from your journal might inspire you to write about it. However, these offers are made possible by special permissions you grant to the app. For him to know that you dined at a certain restaurant or camped at a certain park, he needs to know where you’re going at all times. And since the app offers to write about other things in your daily life, it needs access to additional data beyond your location, such as your fitness activities, media usage (music and podcasts you listen to), your contacts, and your photos.
Apple emphasizes that any log entries are encrypted when your iPhone is locked, as well as when they are stored in iCloud, and that you can turn off access to any of these data points at your discretion. However, they do not state that they do not collect any of your data through this feature. However, all this data is already created on your iPhone: the magazine simply accesses it.
However, one feature of the magazine has recently caused concern on social media: the “Discoverable by others” setting.
Does a log that is discoverable by others pose a privacy risk?
The Discoverable by Others option, turned on quietly, allows other iPhone users using the Journal app to discover your iPhone via Bluetooth. Their Magazine app uses this data to improve its magazine offerings, just as your Magazine app will be useful to you as you get closer to other iPhones in the wild.
I first learned about this setup from this viral TikTok , and at first glance it sounds terrible from a privacy standpoint. Nobody wants their iPhone to constantly be telling other iPhones, “Hey! Jake Peterson here. I’m in that Starbucks too!” The good news is that it’s not as bad as it seems. When enabled, Find out by others will detect the number of devices near you, as well as any contacts within Bluetooth range, without storing the details of those contacts on your phone . The purpose of the magazine is not to offer contacts to write about; rather, it means informing the journal of events for which proposals should be prioritized. If the Journal finds out that you were hanging out with a bunch of people you knew that day or were surrounded by a lot of iPhones, it will assume that everything you did was worth writing about.
To strangers, these encounters in the History app will mark you as just another stranger the iPhone owner was nearby that day—they don’t tell them anything specific about your identity. However, if you have contacts who have also enabled this feature, their journal apps will also know when you are nearby, but only in the moment. The log will not record that Jake Peterson was with you today, only one of your contacts. Personally, I don’t consider this a privacy or security vulnerability. However, I can understand that this is an undesirable feature, especially when the vast majority of users were not aware of it in the first place.
How to turn off discoverability in the Journal app
Luckily, this feature is easy to disable. Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journaling Suggestions , then make sure the Discoverable by others slider is greyed out. While you’re here, take a look at the other offer data points to see if you’re comfortable with the app having access to them as well. If not, disable the ones you want to retract, or click Disable All to lock the log from all of those data points.