You Can Finally Control Which Contacts an App Can Access on Your IPhone
The iPhone did a pretty good job of letting you control how much data apps accessed. You can tell apps not to track your data and prevent them from unnecessarily accessing your location, microphone, and camera . But before iOS 18 , whenever an app requested access to your contacts, you had the choice of either letting it clear your entire address book or denying it access to any contacts at all. Now the situation has changed: the latest OS update allows you to give applications access to only a few contacts.
What happens if apps gain access to all your contacts
There’s a rule of thumb on the Internet: if you allow apps to access your data, they will try to scrape virtually all of it and store it on remote servers until they no longer need it. Of course, there are apps that respect your privacy and avoid collecting unnecessary data. However, some of the world’s most popular apps are not among them.
Let’s talk about social networking apps. Under the guise of connecting with friends, apps like Gmail, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and many others will ask you to give them access to your address book. Once you give them access to this data, you can rest assured that your entire address book has been cleared and social media companies know exactly who you are connected to. This can lead to good results, such as bringing you closer to a long-lost childhood friend you cherish today, but it can also be problematic.
The people in your address book haven’t consented to having their data shared with companies that sell your data to advertisers, but those advertisers may now have their email addresses or phone numbers, as well as a rough idea of who they’re connected to. Even if you only really wanted to find a few select friends on social media, everyone in your address book is now likely to be recommended to each other as acquaintances without their consent. That ex you never want to talk to will probably stumble upon your profile, or vice versa.
That’s why it’s best to limit external access to your data as much as possible. If you’re going to use an app to communicate with just a couple of people, you should be able to share only those contacts with that app. Luckily, iPhone users can now do this easily.
How to selectively share contact information in iOS 18
The best way to give apps access to only some of your contacts is through the iOS 18 Settings app. To do this, first install the iOS 18 beta using these instructions . Ideally, you should install it on a backup device, as using a beta version of the OS may cause your phone to become unstable.
Once you’ve installed iOS 18, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Contacts . You will see a list of applications. Browse through this list, select any app for which you want to restrict contact information, and click Restricted Access . On the new page, click the “Edit” button in the upper right corner. You will now see a list of all your contacts. Select the ones you want the app to access, then click Done .
Alternatively, go to Settings > Apps , select any app, and tap the Contacts button on the next page. It’s easier, but this button only appears if the app has already requested access to your contacts (even if you’ve blocked it from accessing them). On the Contacts privacy page, select Restricted Access and follow the same steps above.