iPhone App Tracking: a 2-Minute Privacy Check

Some apps want to follow what you do in other apps and on websites, so they can build an advertising profile of you. Your iPhone makes them ask first. Two minutes tells you who asked, and who you said yes to.

1. See who asked

Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking. Every app that asked to track you is listed here, with a switch next to it. A green switch means you said yes at some point.

2. Switch off the ones you do not need

Go down the list and turn off any app you do not want following you around. The app keeps working. It just loses permission to link what you do in it with what you do elsewhere.

3. Stop new apps from asking

At the top of the same screen is Allow Apps to Request to Track. Turn it off and every new app is told "no" automatically, without a pop-up. Apps already on the list are switched off too.

4. Check Apple's own ads

Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising and look at Personalized Ads. If you do not want Apple to use your information to choose the ads in the App Store, Apple News and Stocks, turn it off.

5. Look again after new installs

New apps can ask the moment you open them. Once a month, or after installing a few apps, open the Tracking list again.

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 network and your internet provider cannot see which sites and apps you talk to. It does not stop an app you are signed in to from knowing what you do inside it, and it does not replace these settings. Both together cover more. More on the limits: What a VPN cannot protect you from.

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