Today is January 28th, "International Data Privacy Day." In this era where digital footprints are ubiquitous, protecting personal data has become a hot topic. Apple, which has always considered "privacy" a core value, has compiled a special report...10 iPhones and Apple devices with built-in privacy protection featuresUsers are reminded to quickly check their phone settings to prevent their data from being exposed.
In addition to the familiar Safari browser's anti-tracking features, the "Private Cloud Compute" built for the Apple Intelligence era and the highly practical "Lock App" function are also key aspects of this wave of privacy protection.
Browsing and Account Security: Refuse to be "monitored" by advertisers.
• Safari Private Browsing and Locking:Enabling private browsing is already a basic requirement, and Apple's private browsing window automatically locks when not in use, requiring Face ID or a password to reopen it, ensuring that others won't accidentally access your private page when browsing the web on your phone. In addition, Safari automatically blocks known trackers from loading.
• Smart anti-tracking:Feeling like ads follow you everywhere after you view a product? Safari's "Smart Tracking Prevention" uses on-device machine learning technology to keep these cross-site trackers at bay.
• Password App:The Passwords app, which became a standalone app starting with iOS 18, not only integrates the iCloud Keychain feature, but also manages Passkeys and Wi-Fi passwords, and will proactively warn you which passwords have been leaked or are too simple.
• Hide my emails:Don't want to use your real email address when registering for a new service? This feature can generate a random email address and forward emails to your mailbox. You can delete the random address at any time to prevent spam.
Systems and Sensors: Who's Eavesdropping or Spying is Clear at a Glance
• Recording indicator light:This is the most intuitive form of protection. An orange dot at the top of the screen indicates that the microphone is active, while a green dot indicates that the camera (or one with a microphone) is working. If you see a green light even when the camera is off, be wary of an app secretly taking photos.
• Approximate location:To check the weather, you don't actually need to know which building you're in. Users can choose to provide only their "approximate location" (with an error margin of about 26 square kilometers) instead of precise coordinates.
• Background tracking notification:If an app secretly captures your location in the background, the system will periodically pop up a map notification asking if you want to continue allowing it.
AI and App Privacy: Locking Apps Becomes a Powerful Tool
• Lock or hide the app:You can lock specific apps (such as photo albums or banking apps) so that they can only be unlocked with Face ID, or even completely "hide" them so that they won't show up in notifications or searches, and only you will know where they are.
• Privacy Statement Tags:Before downloading an app, you can see what data the app will collect (such as contacts and browsing history) on the App Store page, just like looking at a food nutrition label.
• Private Cloud Compute:This is the core protection for Apple Intelligence. When the phone's own computing power is insufficient to handle complex AI tasks, the data is sent to Apple's dedicated chip servers for processing. Apple guarantees that this data is "not stored, not accessed," and deleted immediately after processing, ensuring that cloud-based AI computations are as secure as those on the device.
