How to View the Private Info Your iPhone Apps Are Accessing

RAYMOND OGLESBY @RaymondOglesby2
January 12, 2022

While using apps on your iPhone, these apps are often busy behind the scenes, using sensors and contacting internet domains without your knowledge. With iOS 15.2 or later, you can see a detailed report of these activities with the App Privacy Report. Let’s find out.

This is for the iPhone running iOS 15.2 or higher

First, open Settings by tapping the grey gear icon. Refer to the below image:

Next, on the Settings screen, tap Privacy. See the below image:

Now, in the Privacy settings, scroll down to the very bottom and tap App Privacy Report. See the following image:

If you have not enabled Record App Activity, tap Turn On App Privacy Report link. Refer to the below image:

If you just enabled App Privacy Report, you will need to use your iPhone for a few days and let the App Privacy Report feature gather data. After that time (or if you have been using the Record App Activity feature in earlier versions of iOS 15), you will see a detailed report about Data & Sensor Access, App Network Activity, Website Network Activity, and Most Contacted Domains. Here’s what each section means:

• Data & Sensor Access: This shows how many times an app accessed your iPhone’s sensors (and when), such as camera, location, contacts, screen recording, media library, photo library, or microphone.
• App Network Activity: This shows how many internet domains an app has contacted and when each contact took place. It includes domains contacted directly by the app and those referenced by content within the app, such as websites that might pull in content from other domains.
• Website Network Activity: This section shows the internet domains that have been contacted by websites you visited through a web browser within an app.
• Most Contacted Domains: This shows a ranking of the internet domains that have been contacted the most by your apps. On the internal App Privacy Report details page in iOS 15.2 or higher, Apple notes that high-ranking domains on this list might be used by multiple apps to build a profile of you across different apps or services.

See the below image:

Next, at any time, you can tap any entry on the list to see more details. Tap Show All at the bottom of each privacy report section to get a complete list. See the following image:

App Privacy Report Can Be a Risk

Enabling App Privacy Report on your iPhone will keep a detailed record of your internet activities on your iPhone (that is stored on your device). If you allow another person to access your iPhone, they can get a very detailed look at what you have been doing with your iPhone on the

Settings > Privacy > App Privacy

report page. If that’s the case, you might want to make sure that App Privacy Report is disabled.

Turn Off App Privacy Report

To disable App Privacy Report, navigate to

Settings > Privacy > App Privacy

then scroll down to the bottom of the page and tap Turn Off App Privacy Report. Refer to the below image:

After that, click OK in the pop-up message, and all existing privacy report activity will be deleted.

If your iPhone is locked down and never shared, App Privacy Report is a great tool to keep an eye on what apps have been doing behind the scenes.

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Viktor E Frankl

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