Apple introduced the App Privacy Report in iOS 15.2, a feature that was first introduced at WWDC 2021. We'll show you how to use it below.
The App Privacy Report is designed to inform users how often apps access sensitive data provided to them through privacy permissions, such as location, contacts, camera, microphone, and photos. Apple also shows network activity so you know which domains apps are contacting in the background.
How to enable App Privacy Report on iOS 15.2
To access the new feature, you must first activate it. This is how you do it:
- Open the “Settings” app
- Scroll down and tap Privacy
- In the Privacy section of the Settings app, scroll down and tap App Privacy Report
- Tap Enable App Privacy Report
Quick note: If you've already enabled the "Record App Activity" option in the iOS 15 / iOS 15.1 updates, the App Privacy Report is automatically enabled and already populated with data. If you haven't, you may need to use apps and websites for a few minutes before you actually see the data.
Use App Privacy Report
Apple shows the data from the last seven days in the new data protection report. The app is divided into several areas so that users can more easily access the information they want.
access to data and sensors
In this section, Apple shows a list of apps that have accessed sensors and data granted to them through privacy permissions, which are your most sensitive information. Data and sensor access shows you when apps have accessed the following data:
- contacts
- Location
- Photos
- Camera
- microphone
- media library
If you tap on an individual app and then tap the permission you want to learn more about, the App Privacy Report will provide you with a list of all the app's accesses to the data in question.
app network activity
App Network Activity lets you see a list of all the different domains your apps have contacted in the last seven days. This includes various internal domains used by the apps, as well as third-party websites and services accessed, such as tracking or analytics tools. You can tap on any app in the list to get an overview of all the domains that have been contacted. For example, if you have our Apfelpatient app installed, you will see our internal URL as well as various URLs from Apple, a few from Google, and more. Unlike Facebook, however, you enjoy much more privacy with us.
website network activity
Website Network Activity is essentially the same as App Network Activity, but shows you all the domains contacted by the websites you visited in Safari and other apps.
Most contacted domains
The Most Contacted Domains list is a summary of the domains that have been contacted most frequently by apps and is usually populated by various trackers and analytics domains. In this section, you can tap on any domain in the list to see which apps or websites have used that particular domain.
Disable app privacy report
If you do not want to use the App Privacy Report, you can follow these steps to disable the feature:
- Open the app Settings
- Scroll down and tap Privacy
- In the Privacy section of the Settings app, scroll down and tap App Privacy Report
- Tap Turn off app privacy reporting
Note that turning off App Privacy Report will delete all collected data. If you turn App Privacy Report back on, Apple will start collecting data from apps again. Personally, I would advise you to leave it turned on. After all, a little control can't hurt. (Photo by Denys Prykhodov / Bigstockphoto)
