Important New iOS 7 Privacy Settings to Review

Important New iOS 7 Privacy Settings to Review

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Apple’s new mobile operating system — iOS 7 — is winning rave review for it’s new design. However, it also introduces some new privacy settings that are worth a second look.


iOS 7 can track your frequent locations, such as home and work, to help predict your next destination and provide traffic information on the “Today” section of the Notification Center. Many apps also request your current location to provide weather forecasts and interesting locations nearby.

To see which apps are tracking your location, go to Settings>> Privacy>>Location Services. The arrow-head icon indicates when an app is tracking your location. Be sure to read through the information at the bottom of this section for more details on what the different colored arrows mean.

There are some other settings you can change by heading to the “System Services” section.
You may want to turn off the “Diagnostics and Usage” setting. It can collect information on how you use your gadget and sends the data back to Apple. However, if you hate app crashes and want to help developers understand what went wrong, you may want to leave this option on.

Just below it, turn off Location-Based iAds. This is Apple’s mobile ad platform. It tracks where you are to create targeted ads (for example, it can show you ads for more local businesses instead of just national ones).

Select “Frequent Locations” and consider changing the setting to Off. While this can help provide predictive traffic reports, it may also increase your battery drain since it is monitoring your location.

Of course, there are websites that like to track you, too. iOS 7 implements the standard “Do Not Track” option seen today in many desktop browsers. However, remember that it is up to the individual websites to honor this setting. Go to Settings>>Safari. Turn ON the “Do Not Track” option.

Also, don’t forget to update to iOS version 7.0.2 to fix a bug where, by using a quick sequence of gestures, can allow someone to bypass your lockscreen. Go to Settings>>General>>Software Update.

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