4 Privacy Settings You Should Have Turned Off In 2024: Background App Refresh & More

In this day and age of what feels like numerous hacking attempts at every turn, it helps to become familiar with your phone’s privacy settings and to select those that you should turn off in order to keep your data as private as possible. There’s no need to complicate matters, either: there are four privacy settings on your phone that are notorious for putting your data, including your location, at greater risk of being exposed and captured by the wrong people.

In order to ensure your phone is as private and protected as possible, consider turning off these four privacy settings on your iPhone that could be putting your data at risk.

Advertising Tracking

There is no good reason — none whatsoever — why your phone should expose you to advertising tracking that you didn’t sign up for, but there’s one problem. You may have accidentally enabled this setting or never turned it off, and therefore Apple has the green light to send you ads. Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising. Turn off “Personalized Ads.”

Background App Refresh

Background App Refresh is a setting that provides convenience — it prompts your apps to update even when you aren’t using them. But there’s a downside to a setting that ensures your apps are ready with new content at all times: the setting can collect data. Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh. Disabling this setting can also help boost your battery power.

Share My Location

There are times when you may want to share your location with friends and family, including when you’re traveling solo or are in an unfamiliar area or on a blind date. But there are so many more times when it doesn’t serve you to have this setting enabled and it can create privacy risks. Disable it by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Share My Location. Disable Share My Location.

Location Services

When Location Services is enabled for different apps, those apps have access to your location. They can use your location to promote products to you based on where you live (as one example of why they’d like this info so badly). Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services. Either disable this setting for all apps, or enable it only for those apps that you use often and require it to do their jobs, like weather or maps apps.