How to enable the iPhone’s App Privacy Report in iOS 15.2

Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 15, promised to be more secure and private than ever. Features like easy-to-use burner emails, a passwordless future, and an App Privacy Report to see what data and permissions apps were using were all unveiled.

That last feature launched but didn’t let you see what apps were doing. With iOS 15.2 and newer, you can see the feature’s results.

It transparently shows you what the apps on your iPhone are doing, and it’s awesome.

Now you can easily see which sensors and hardware your apps are accessing and the myriad web domains they talk to. That last point is important, as it was difficult to do it alone.

Those web domains are probably being used to build up advertising profiles on you, so you can see why you’d want to know about them.

Thankfully, Apple’s iOS App Privacy Report is here to help.

Here’s how to set up the iOS App Privacy Report on your iPhone

Open the Settings app.

Tap on Privacy (renamed to Privacy & Security in iOS 16).

Scroll down, then tap on App Privacy Report.

Tap on Turn On App Privacy Report.

After a few minutes, you should be able to see a screen like this on the App Privacy Report page.

You need to know a few things about the data in the report. First, only the last seven days are shown with Apple not keeping any older data.

You’ll get data on four main categories:

• Data & Sensor Access: This shows which apps access sensors or hardware on your iPhone.
• App Network Activity: Any internet domains your apps are dialing out to will appear here. It’ll probably be mostly advertising domains and big players like Facebook.
• Website Network Activity: This shows which domains your browsing has visited.
• Most Contacted Domains: The most frequently accessed domains from your apps or web browsing will appear here.

Every entry in the report is tappable, so you can see exactly what each app is up to.

If you see something you don’t want happening, like an app accessing Location or Microphone data that it shouldn’t be, you can go to the app in Settings and revoke its access.

The report also shows you the third-party domains your apps are accessing, which is very useful. If you want any of them to be blocked, you can do some other things.

Some options include blocking them at your router or getting popular firewall devices like Firewalla to block things before they hit your device.

Apple’s App Privacy Report is now available in iOS 15.2 and iPadOS 15.2, and every version of iOS since.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere. His hobbies include photography, animation, and hoarding Reddit gold.