How to prevent apps and services from ad tracking on iPhone

Apple with its latest iOS update has added several new features to ensure users data safety and privacy. This also includes ad-tracking prevention.

 

The ad tracking feature allows marketers and advertisers to place ads based on users interest and liking. You often see an ad for a particular product which you have been discussing with your friends and family or simply did a Google search. That’s because apps and services like this track users' interests to place ads.

Apple has recently made some changes to its privacy policies to minimise ad tracking for iPhone users.

So, if you want to take charge of your data and prevent sites, apps from tracking you then Apple has some easy ways to do that. Read on to know more.

Apple’s Advertising and privacy page clearly mentions that the company does not track its users and collect data from apps or device data. However, it also mentions contextual information such as location data, search details etc can be collected. But, users have the option to stop that by turning off personalised and location-based ads.

How to turn off Personalised ads


Settings-> Privacy ->Apple Advertising -> Toggle off Personalised Ads

How to turn off Location-based ads


Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services-> Toggle off Location Services.

Now, those two aren’t enough to prevent ad tracking. You will also need to make some changes to the browser, apps, etc.

How to manage Safari to prevent ad tracking

Setting -> Safari -> Privacy & Security -> Turn on Prevent Cross-Site Tracking

Also, enable Block All Cookies option to prevent data collection.

Apart from this, you can also turn off Background App refresh to prevent data tracking by apps.

Do note that turning this feature might delay notifications and updates from apps. In some cases, you won’t see new notifications until you open the app.