“What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone,” Apple’s billboard once said. Mostly true — but the phone still ships with a few switches turned on that pass information about your browsing and your habits to advertisers or to Apple’s own AI. Chip Hallett, a security specialist and author of The Ultimate Privacy Playbook, picks three that are worth turning off. None of them will break anything you use daily.
1. Safari’s ad measurement
What it does: Privacy Preserving Ad Measurement lets websites learn whether an ad you saw led to a click or a purchase, without identifying you by name. Apple’s argument is that this is a privacy-friendly replacement for tracking cookies. Hallett’s argument is that it is still a report on your ad behaviour being sent to third parties, and you did not ask for it.
Where: Settings → Safari → scroll to the bottom → Advanced → turn off Privacy Preserving Ad Measurement.
2. App tracking requests
What it does: Since iOS 14.5, apps must ask before tracking you across other apps and websites — that is the “Ask App Not to Track” pop-up. With the master switch off, apps cannot even ask, and every one is treated as denied. You lose nothing except the pop-ups.
Where: Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking → turn off Allow Apps to Request to Track.
3. Apple Intelligence learning
What it does: Apple’s AI features draw on what you do in apps to suggest actions, apps and notifications. Hallett recommends stopping that learning at the source. This matters less in Bangladesh, where Apple Intelligence is not yet available in most regions and languages, but the settings exist on any iPhone 15 Pro or newer running iOS 18, and switching them off now means nothing is collected when the feature does arrive.
Where: Settings → Apple Intelligence & Siri → for each app you care about, turn off Learn from this App, Suggest App and Suggest Notifications.
Two more worth a look
While you are in Privacy & Security, open Apple Advertising and switch off Personalised Ads, which stops the App Store and News using your data to target you. And check Location Services → System Services → Significant Locations, which keeps a history of places you visit — useful for Maps, unsettling for many. The point of all five is the same: Apple’s defaults are better than most, but “better” is still a choice someone else made for you, and the switches are there to be used.
Source: Daily Mail, via Prothom Alo.
