Change These IPhone Settings to Stop Apple From Collecting (Some) of Your Data
There is a dichotomy between what Apple says about privacy and some of its actions. On one hand, the company uses end-to-end encryption for iMessage and Facetime , and also uses on-device processing for many of its artificial intelligence features . On the other hand, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Apple collects a significant portion of your data to improve its services, which make up an increasingly large portion of its revenue. From little things like using location data to improve Apple Maps to collecting your information to serve ads on the App Store, examples of data collection are everywhere.
While you can do a lot to reduce the amount of data collected by third parties on your iPhone , it’s difficult to avoid Apple’s own data collection. Apple is pretty open about this, but there have been a few examples recently where the company has enabled certain types of data collection by default. Ideally, this should be voluntary, and fortunately, you can manually disable some of these features.
Before you get started, you should know that if you use an iPhone, you can only avoid a limited amount of Apple’s data collection. You’re using an Apple device that runs the company’s operating system, and you have very limited control over third-party data collection . This is unlike using a Mac, where the firewall allows you to block even Apple’s own apps from calling home . However, Apple does offer some control over the types of data collected, and you can click a few toggles to reduce it.
Reduce Siri data collection
If the recent Siri spying settlement is to be believed, you should keep an eye on the data the voice assistant collects. To get started, go to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri and review the options on the page. If you don’t want to use Siri at all, go to Enter text and talk to Siri and select Off , then turn off Press the side button for Siri . On compatible iPhones, turn off text input for Siri . Once you’ve turned off all possible toggles, iOS will ask if you really want to turn off Siri, so tap Turn off Siri .
Then go to the previous page, select Siri and Dictation History , and select Delete Siri and Dictation History to delete all Siri request records from Apple’s servers. However, to completely remove all associated data from Apple’s servers, you will also need to disable dictation. You’ll find this option under General > Keyboards .
You can even turn off some features in the Suggestions section to reduce the number of Siri suggestions you receive when using your iPhone.
Disable Apple Intelligence
There are very few artificial intelligence functions that operate completely offline . Even Apple Intelligence sends a significant portion of your data to Apple servers. Even though Apple Intelligence encrypts your data , it requires a call home to work properly. If you’d rather avoid this, you can turn off Apple Intelligence by going to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri and turning off the switch next to Apple Intelligence .
Stop Apple from collecting your search data
Apple also collects search queries you use in Safari, Siri, and Spotlight Search to improve search results. Although Apple says this data is not associated with you, it remains another form of additional data collection. You can turn off this feature by going to Settings > Search and turning off Help Apple improve search .
Check Apple Location Access
Some Apple services, such as Find My , require your location information to function properly. If Apple doesn’t see your location, Maps won’t work and won’t be able to help you find your device if it’s lost or stolen. However, there are many other cases where Apple doesn’t need access to your location at all . You can check and turn off Apple’s location access by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services . Scroll through the list of apps and turn off location access for each Apple app that doesn’t need it.
You’ll see Apple explain why it “needs” access to your location on a per-app basis. Apps like Apple Watch Workout require location access to track workout routes, but other apps like the App Store can do without it. (Apple says the App Store needs your location to display apps and ads that are relevant to you, and it’s easy to do.) Then scroll down, go to System Services , and see all the options here. It’s quite easy to disable the wrong setting on this page, so be careful what you disable. However, you can safely turn off location access for some features, such as web browsing within an app. Pro tip: Turn on the status bar icon if it’s not already, and you’ll see every time an app on your iPhone accesses your location information.
You can also open the Primary Locations menu on this page and select Clear History , which will delete all saved locations that apps use to provide location-based services. However, this information is completely encrypted and Apple cannot see or access it. This data can also be quite useful: for example, Photos can create a slideshow of photos taken at your home or favorite camping spot using this information.
Disable advanced visual search
A companion feature is called Enhanced Visual Search , which allows Apple to match locations in your photos with a global index. With it, you can search for landmarks or interesting places in the Photos app to find photos. You can also turn off this feature by going to Settings > Apps > Photos and turning off advanced visual search .
Disable Apple Analytics
Apple collects data to improve its products. None of this is enabled by default, but you should review these settings to see if you want to continue sharing this data with the company. You can turn off these settings on your iPhone by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > System Services and scrolling down. Disable iPhone Analytics , routing and traffic and improve maps .
After that, you can go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Analytics & Improvements . All of these settings are designed to collect data to improve Apple services, and if you’re not happy with it, feel free to turn them all off.
Reduce personalized advertising
For a company that promotes privacy, Apple runs a lot of advertising on its platforms. You can’t completely block most Apple ads, but you can reduce the frequency of interruptions to your workflow . You can also reduce the amount of your data used to personalize Apple ads by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Ads on your iPhone, and then turning off personalized ads .
Strengthen your iCloud security
iCloud security has come a long way in recent years, but despite many of us using it, Apple still has too much potential access to our data. By default, when using iCloud, 15 items are end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) , including iCloud messages, health data, and passwords. But a number of other data are not, including Notes, Photos and iCloud backup. Moreover, if you use iCloud to backup your iPhone, your messages will lose E2EE. All of this data is still encrypted, it’s just that Apple has the keys to unlock that encryption. This is great if you lose access to your account, but not so great from a privacy and security perspective: do you really want Apple to have access to your messages or iCloud backups?
The easiest way to encrypt most of your iCloud data with E2EE is to use Advanced Data Protection . This option encrypts almost all of your iCloud data, including messages, notes, contacts, and the backups themselves, using E2EE. This solves the privacy and security issue (Apple no longer has the keys to access this data), but it also means Apple won’t be able to help you if you lose access to your account or recovery key. If you go this route, be careful.
The only data points that aren’t encrypted are Mail, Contacts, and iCloud Calendar. If you’re absolutely serious about Apple not having access to this information, you’ll need to disable these options. To view your iCloud data usage, go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud and click the View All button next to Saved in iCloud . From here, you can go through this list and turn off iCloud sync for services that don’t need it, whether for E2EE reasons or not. For me, Apple Books and Voice Memos are optional, and I have turned off syncing for those services. I also turned off iCloud Photos and switched to OneDrive since I have 1TB of free space with my Microsoft 365 subscription.
Once you’re done controlling what data you send to Apple, consider opting out of data brokers’ data collection and running a privacy audit on your iPhone .