iPhone App Privacy Report: See What Your Apps Do in 5 Minutes

Your iPhone can show you, app by app, which of your private data each app opened and which internet addresses it contacted. The feature is called App Privacy Report. It is built in and free, and most people have never turned it on. Here is how to use it in five minutes.

1. Turn it on

Go to Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll to the bottom, tap App Privacy Report and then Turn On App Privacy Report. It starts collecting from that moment, so the report is empty at first. Come back after a day or two of normal use. The report covers the last 7 days.

2. Read "Data & Sensor Access"

This part lists which apps opened your location, photos, camera, microphone, contacts and other private data, and how often. Ask one question per line: does this app need that to do its job? A map app using your location makes sense. A flashlight app reading your contacts does not.

What to do: if the answer is no, open the app's page in Settings and switch that permission off, or set location to "While Using the App" or "Never".

3. Read "App Network Activity"

Each app is listed with the web addresses (domains) it contacted. Many apps talk to analytics and advertising companies as well as to their own servers, so you will often see names you do not recognise. That is not proof of anything bad on its own, but an app that reaches dozens of outside companies is telling you something about how it makes money.

What to do: tap an app to see its list. If a simple app talks to far more companies than you expected, look for a lighter alternative.

4. Check "Website Network Activity" and "Most Contacted Domains"

Website Network Activity shows the domains contacted by websites you opened inside apps, for example a page that loads inside a social app. Most Contacted Domains ranks the addresses your apps and those websites reach most often. A name near the top that you have never heard of is worth a quick search.

5. Act on what you find

Delete apps you no longer use. An unused app can still run in the background and still holds the permissions you gave it.

Go through Settings > Privacy & Security once and switch off anything an app does not need.

Under Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking, turn off "Allow Apps to Request to Track" if you never want to be asked.

What a VPN changes, and what it does not

A VPN encrypts the connection between your phone and the VPN server, so the Wi-Fi owner and your internet provider cannot read what you send or see which sites your apps reach. It does not decide what an app does with your data: if an app chooses to send your details to a partner company, that happens inside the app, before anything leaves your phone. So App Privacy Report and a VPN do two different jobs, and you want both. For the full list of limits, read What a VPN Can't Protect You From. And before you trust any VPN with your traffic, take five minutes with its privacy policy: How to Read a VPN Privacy Policy in 5 Minutes.

---

CasperVPN encrypts your internet connection with WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2 and CasperCloak, our own protocol, on iPhone and iPad (Mac app coming). Download CasperVPN →