privacy - page 10

Want to delete your tweets? Maybe you don’t like keeping all those years-old opinions hanging around. Or maybe you just don’t like Twitter having so much info on you, all in one place. Or maybe you’re just sick of Twitter and want out, but not without nuking it from orbit before you go.

The trouble is, it takes an age to manually delete all your tweets. Unless you want to drive yourself crazy, you’ll need to use a third-party tool to do it.

While authorizing a third-party service to use your Twitter account might seem a bit scary, if you’re deleting everything anyway, who cares?

I picked Cardigan for this how-to, as it seems like the nicest of the tweet deleters. Here’s how to use it.

Apple’s latest video is a humorous take a serious topic. It reminds users of this company’s commitment to privacy with the tagline: “If privacy matters in your life, it should matter to the phone your life is on.”

Watch it now:

Even in the age of social media, our phones are one of the easiest ways for uninvited or unwanted contact. Privacy is hard to come by these days, so imagine being able to give your craigslist seller or Tinder date a phone number other than your real one. Or just having a dedicated line for work.

Apple’s CEO is optimistic about his company’s plan to have the iPhone store all our health records, even though it got a black eye recently: turns out some third-party iOS apps leaked health-related data to Facebook. 

But Tim Cook says that people trust Apple because the company has a deep commitment to user privacy, and people know that. 

Australia recently passed a law forcing tech companies to give law enforcement greater access to encrypted messages from users. The U.K. already has a similar law, and India is considering one.

There’s no new legislation in the U.S., but the FBI and other police agencies still want easy access to iPhones and other computers, as well as private conversations.

Deleting your Facebook account isn’t enough to stop some apps from sending deeply personal information about you to the social network.

The Wall Street Journal found a wide range of apps that send personal information to Facebook even if you don’t have an account. Health apps and real estate apps were discovered sending a lot of information to Facebook and the type of data might surprise you.

Apple has pulled all but one third-party SDK from Shazam in its latest update.

The move wipes out analytics firms, ad networks, open-source projects, and more — including Google AdMob, Facebook Ads, Amazon Ads, and DoubleClick. Only HockeyApp, a Microsoft platform for beta testing, is still available.

How many time have you tried to remember that site where you read that thing last week? A million, probably. And how many times have you found it? Less than a million, for sure. But did you know that you can use Google to search only sites that you have visited?

You can, and it’s awesome.

Apple wants developers to be more transparent about the use of analytics code that lets them record how users interact with apps. Or else.

Hammering home its commitment to user privacy, Apple has contacted the makers of several apps recently highlighted as gathering screen-recording analytics data without properly disclosing it — and it wasn’t just for a friendly chat.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed plans to merge WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger — but says it probably won’t happen until 2020 at the earliest.

In a fourth-quarter earnings call this week, Zuckerberg also explained the reasons behind the plan, such as increased security with end-to-end encryption. Many questions still remain unanswered, however.

Apple just dealt Facebook a serious blow in retaliation for the social network’s recently pulled VPN app that was paying teens to take all their data from phones.

Facebook’s internal iOS apps no longer work after Apple revoked the certifications need to install the apps on employee’s iPhones. Everything from early builds of Facebook, Messenger and Instagram won’t even open. Even simple tools like a lunch menu are currently broken.

You know the Apple FaceTime bug that everyone’s going crazy about? It’s a huge screwup, for sure, but at least we know it’s just a bug. Being able to call someone and eavesdrop on their conversations without them knowing is clearly a privacy nightmare, which is why Apple disabled Group FaceTime until it can issue a proper fix.

Amazon, on the other hand, offers silent eavesdropping as a feature for its Echo speakers. It’s called Drop In, and if you’ve enabled it, you should probably turn it off.

Facebook will shut down the iOS version of its Research app after a TechCrunch report revealed how it was paying users aged 13-35 to install a VPN, allowing it to gather data on their phone and web activity.

This follows an incident last August in which Apple asked Facebook to remove its Onavo VPN from the App Store, since it was violating Apple’s data collection policies.

Malicious Siri Shortcuts are a real possibility warns one developer, so users need to start treating all of them as potential threats. He calls on Apple to fix their problems.

Shortcuts debuted last fall in iOS 12. They are small apps that can be used to automate iOS features. That apparently makes them well suited for creating malware.

Apple was made aware of a serious flaw in FaceTime over a week ago and ignored it, one user claims.

The bug, which allows callers to see and hear you before you’ve answered a Group FaceTime call, has forced Apple to disable the feature this week. But why wasn’t it recognized earlier?

Apple has confirmed that it’s possible for a FaceTime caller to listen to the person on the other end of the call — and even see them — before they pick up. Making use of this newly-discovered bug requires actions someone isn’t likely to do accidentally, which is probably why It wasn’t noticed during testing.

UPDATE: Apple said this evening it will quickly fix this serious privacy flaw. In the mean time, it has also disabled its servers needed for Group FaceTime to function.

Tim Cook has called for “comprehensive federal privacy legislation” in the U.S. that would fight the “shadow economy” of data brokers. Cook’s comments were made in an op-ed for Time Magazine, published today.

This is just the latest example of Cook calling out companies which make their money trading in user data, often gathered without the full understanding of users of a particular service.

You know how iOS’ accessibility features often prove handy for all users? Like Live Listen, which lets you turn your AirPods into remote listening devices? Or a combo of settings that resurrects an iPhone with a broken screen?

The same is true for Screen Time. This feature tracks how long you spend using apps every day, and can help you limit that time. But you can also use Screen Time to password-protect any app on your iPhone or iPad.

DuckDuckGo teamed up with Apple to  protect user privacy for map and address-related searches. Their agreement gives users of the search engine access to continually updated maps, enhanced satellite imagery and more without exposing their data.

The pairing seems natural as both Apple and DuckDuckGo have taken strong stances on protecting user privacy.

It’s not hard to get learn the location of almost any phone, according to a new report. All that’s required is some cash and the right contacts in a web of companies with access to the geolocation data collected by mobile phone companies.

Did you know that every photo you send via iMessage, or other messaging services like WhatsApp, contains all that photo’s location data? If you snap a picture in your home, anyone who’s receives that photo will be able to see where you took it on a map.

The same goes for uploading images to online auction sites, or internet forums. The good news is that it’s easy to sanitize your images with Shortcuts.

Apple’s not letting CES 2019 pass without making its presence felt.

The biggest companies in tech have descended on Las Vegas this week for CES 2019. Apple is one of the few holdouts not in attendance but that hasn’t stopped the company from sending a huge message to its competitors and customers by posting a giant billboard above the city of Las Vegas.

Growing concerns about how much companies are spying on us tops our list of the most significant tech trends of 2018. Also on the list are some big changes in applications, a trend in phone design, and a new type of device that became nearly ubiquitous. 

As the new year begins, let’s take a look back at what changed for Apple and the tech world over the past 12 months.

Your iPhone apps can track your location. You already know that, but maybe you tell yourself that that weather app just uses your current location to give you an accurate forecast, or that your bike-routing and tracking app is just keeping a count of miles and calories.

In reality, any one of these apps may be taking that location data and selling it. One way to handle this is to keep up to date with the privacy policies of any location-aware apps you use, but that’s too much work for most of us. Instead, why not just deny them access to your location? On iOS, that’s easy, and it works.

Apple has joined other tech giants — including Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others — in speaking out against the anti-encryption law recently passed in Australia.

The country’s controversial law means that law enforcement officials are allowed to access encrypted messages when required. Unsurprisingly, tech’s biggest titans are none too happy about it.