Security & Privacy

Your iPhone’s built-in privacy settings cover a lot of ground, but they don’t control everything. Each app has its own privacy controls, organized under different menus and written in different terms.

To limit what you share and who can see it, you have to open those apps and adjust them one at a time.

Below, you’ll find straightforward steps to manage online privacy settings in apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, X, and Safari. You’ll also learn how the privacy settings inside each app account differ from the permissions you give apps in iOS (such as access to your location, photos, or camera). That way, you can manage both parts without mixing them up.

What “privacy settings” means on your iPhone

Privacy controls on your iPhone live in two distinct places. When these two get mixed up, it’s easy to assume a setting is protecting your privacy when it’s doing something else.

First are your account settings, which sit inside each app. They control things like who sees your posts, whether your profile is public, and if people can look you up using your email or phone number. Because these settings belong to your account, they also apply when you use the app on another phone, a tablet, or a web browser.

Then there are your iOS permissions, which you find in the Settings app. These control what each app is allowed to access on your iPhone. That includes your location, camera, microphone, contacts, photos, and whether it can track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites. These permissions apply to this iPhone.

How to control app permissions on iPhone

Beyond each app’s own settings, iOS gives you a central place to review what every app can access on your device:

1. Open the Settings app and scroll down to Privacy & Security.
2. Review and adjust your system permissions:
   • Hardware and data permissions: Tap any category, such as Location Services, Camera, Microphone, or Photos, to view every app that has asked for permission and choose what each one can access. Some categories go beyond on or off: you can give an app access to only the photos or contacts you select, or let it use your location only while you’re using the app.
   • Tracking: Tap Tracking to turn off Allow Apps to Request to Track, which stops apps from asking to follow your activity across other apps and sites. You can also turn tracking off for specific apps individually.
   • App Privacy Report: Scroll to the bottom of the Privacy & Security menu to turn on this feature. This shows you how often apps have actually used the permissions you’ve granted over the past 7 days, and which internet domains they’ve contacted. The report only starts collecting information once you turn it on.
   • Safety Check: Near the bottom of Privacy & Security, Safety Check lets you review who and which apps can access your information, and reset system privacy permissions for all people and apps at once if you need to.

How to manage Instagram privacy settings

To make your Instagram account private, go to Settings and activity > Account privacy and turn on Private account. Instagram gives you several controls for deciding who can see your content and interact with your account. The menus can shift slightly depending on your phone or account, but you’ll find most of what you need under Settings and activity:

1. Open Instagram and tap your profile icon (bottom right).
2. Tap the menu icon (three lines, top right) to open Settings and activity.
3. Review the options under Who can see your content:
   • Account privacy: Switching Private account on makes your profile private, meaning only people you approve can follow you, see what you post, or see your followers and following lists. On a public account, anyone who visits your profile can see both lists. Switching to private is the only built-in way to hide them from everyone you haven’t approved.
   • Close Friends: This lets you build a smaller group of people when you want to share posts, reels, or stories with only a trusted circle.
   • Blocked: Stops specific people from seeing your profile, viewing what you share, or sending you messages.
   • Hide story and live: Lets you hide your stories and live videos from selected accounts.
     
4. Review the options under How others can interact with you:
   • Messages and story replies: Controls who can message you, add you to groups, or respond to your stories. This is also where you turn off active status and read receipts if you prefer not to broadcast when you’re online or reading messages.
   • Tags and mentions: Decides who’s allowed to tag your account in their photos and reels or mention you in their posts.
   • Sharing and reuse: Determines whether other people can re-share your content, remix your posts into their own, or download what you post. You can also block websites from embedding your posts or profile in external articles. If your account is public, this is also where you stop other people from reusing your reels with Meta’s AI features.
   • Restricted: Limits interaction from someone specific without notifying them. Only they can see their new comments on your posts unless you approve them, and their messages go to your message requests.
5. Review the options under Your app and media:
   • Device permissions: Shows which iOS permissions Instagram has, like your camera, contacts, or location. It takes you to your iPhone’s Settings app if you want to change them.

How to manage Facebook privacy settings

The quickest way to review your main Facebook privacy settings is Privacy Checkup, under Settings & privacy. Facebook groups its privacy tools into a few clear categories, covering everything from who can see your posts to how people find your profile. You can reach all of them under Settings & privacy:

1. Open the Facebook app and tap the Menu icon at the top right (the three lines).
2. Tap Settings & privacy, then Settings.
3. Review the options under Audience and visibility:
   • Profile locking: Limits your photos, posts, and stories so only people on your friends list can view them. Profile locking is only available in some countries. If you don’t see it, use the Profile details and Posts settings below instead.
   • Profile details: Sets who can see details such as your location, birthday, and contact info.
   • How people find and contact you: Sets who can send you friend requests and view your friends list, and if people can find your account using your phone number or email address. This is also where you stop external search engines from linking directly to your profile.
   • Posts: Decides who can see what you post, both for new updates and older posts on your timeline.
   • Stories and Reels: Adjusts who can watch your reels and stories, and whether viewers can share them.
   • Followers and public content: Manages who can follow your account, see the pages or people you follow, and comment when you post publicly.
   • Profile and tagging: Controls who can post on your profile, who sees posts you are tagged in, and whether friends can re-share your posts to their own stories.
   • Blocking: Cuts off interaction from specific accounts, preventing them from seeing your profile, messaging you, tagging you, or sending invites. They may still be able to interact with you in the apps, games, or groups you both participate in.
   • Active status: Turn this off if you don’t want friends and contacts to see when you’re currently online or recently active across Facebook and Messenger.
     
4. Review the options under Your activity:
   • Device permissions: Shows which iOS permissions Facebook has, such as location, camera, or contacts, and takes you to your iPhone’s Settings app to change them.
   • Apps and websites: Lets you review and remove third-party services, games, or sites that you’ve logged into using your Facebook account.
   • Activity from other businesses: Controls whether Meta uses information that other companies share about your activity, such as purchases or visits to their sites, to personalize your ads. In some countries, Meta also uses it to personalize your Feed and AI responses.
5. Review the options under Tools and resources:
   • Privacy Checkup: A guided walkthrough that covers your core privacy settings step by step, so you can review the key ones without going through every menu.

How to manage WhatsApp privacy settings

WhatsApp lets you decide who can see your personal info, view your status, or reach you directly. You can adjust all of these by tapping your profile icon on the bottom-right (the You tab) and selecting Privacy.

At the top of the menu, you’ll find settings for your basic account visibility:

• Last seen & online: Controls who can see when you were last using the app or if you are active right now.
• Profile picture, About, and Links: Lets you limit who sees your picture, bio description, and profile links, either everyone, all or some of your contacts, or no one.
• Groups: Stops strangers or unwanted contacts from adding you to group chats without your permission. However, joining a community automatically adds you to its announcement group.
• Status: Controls who sees your WhatsApp status, if people can reshare and forward your status, and if you can share your status to Facebook and Instagram. By default, only your contacts can see your status.
  

Further down the Privacy menu, you can adjust more privacy options:

• Live location: Shows an active list of any personal or group chats where you’re currently sharing your real-time location, allowing you to stop sharing at any point.
• Calls: Turn on Silence unknown callers to silence incoming calls from numbers not saved in your contacts.
• Contacts: Manages your blocked list, preventing specific people from calling you, messaging you, or seeing your profile updates.
• Read receipts: Turning this off hides the blue checkmarks so others can’t tell when you’ve read their messages or listened to their voice notes. Read receipts stay on in group chats. Keep in mind that this also prevents you from seeing read receipts on messages you send.
• Protect IP address in calls: Found inside the Advanced setting, this routes your calls through WhatsApp servers, masking your IP address from the person you’re calling. Call quality may be slightly lower.
• Disable link previews: Also inside Advanced. When you send a link, WhatsApp won’t load a preview of the page, so the linked site can’t see your IP address through that preview.
• Privacy checkup: A step-by-step guide that walks you through your core security and privacy choices in a few quick taps.

How to manage X (formerly Twitter) privacy settings

To make your X account private, go to Settings and privacy > Privacy and safety > Audience and tagging and turn on Protect your posts. You can manage who sees your posts, who can message or call you, and how your personal data is used under the Privacy and safety settings on X:

1. Open X and tap your profile picture on the top-left corner.
2. Tap Settings and privacy > Privacy and safety.
   
3. Review the privacy options under Your X activity:
   • Audience and tagging: Protects your posts so only approved followers can see them, and prevents viewers from downloading your videos from posts or messages. To make your posts public again, turn Protect your posts off.
   • Mute and block: Keeps track of accounts you’ve blocked and muted and lets you filter specific words, phrases, and notifications out of your feed.
   • Chat: Controls who can send you message requests or place audio and video calls. Enabling Always relay calls routes calls through X servers, which hides your IP address from the person you’re calling.
   • Spaces: Keeps your live audio listening activity private so followers don’t see which Spaces you join.
   • Discoverability and contacts: Stops people from finding your account if they have your email address or phone number in their contacts.
   • About your account: Sets how specific your displayed profile location is, allowing you to limit it to a general region or country.
4. Review the options under Data sharing and personalization:
   • Ads preferences: Turning off Personalized ads prevents X from targeting you using off-platform data, though you’ll still see standard ads based on your activity on the platform.
   • Inferred identity: Stops X from connecting your account to other web browsers, secondary devices, email address, or phone numbers it guesses might belong to you.
   • Data sharing with business partners: Disables commercial data-sharing agreements that pass non-public personal information to X partners. You can also stop YouTube videos from playing directly in your timeline, limiting the data YouTube collects about your interactions with those videos.
   • Location information: Turn off Approximate location so X can’t tailor your feed, recommendations, or local ads based on your device’s approximate location. X can only use your precise location if you also allow it in your iPhone’s Location Services, so you can switch it off in either place.
   • Grok & Third-party Collaborators: Controls whether your public posts and your conversations with Grok can be used to train xAI’s AI models, and whether X uses your data to personalize Grok. To delete past Grok conversations, use Delete conversation history under Grok.

How to manage TikTok privacy settings

To make your TikTok account private, go to Settings and privacy, scroll down to the Visibility section, and turn on Private account. TikTok groups its safety and privacy controls in one place, letting you decide who can watch your videos, send messages, or remix your content. You can find these under Settings and privacy:

1. Tap Profile (bottom right), then the menu icon (top right).
2. Tap Settings and privacy.
3. Review the privacy options under Visibility:
   • Private account: Turn this on if you want only people you approve to follow you and watch your videos. This also stops other people from Duetting, Stitching, or downloading your videos.
4. Review the privacy options under Interactions:
   • Comments: Restricts who can comment on your posts and lets you filter out offensive words or keywords.
   • Mentions: Controls who’s allowed to mention you in video captions, comments, stickers, or stories.
   • Direct messages: Determines who can message you, and whether people can see when you’ve read their messages.
   • Reuse of content: Controls whether other creators can Stitch, Duet, create stickers with your posts, or share your posts and comments to their own stories.
   • Display profile when sharing links: Prevents your name and profile icon from appearing when someone opens a TikTok link you sent them on another app.
   • Downloads: Disables the download button on your videos, preventing viewers from saving your clips directly to their phones.
   • Following list: Sets whether your list of followed accounts is visible to everyone or kept private to you.
   • Liked videos: Sets whether everyone or only you can see the videos you liked.
     
5. Review the privacy options under Preferences:
   • Audience control: Restricts your live broadcasts and videos so they’re only recommended to viewers who are 18 or older.
   • Ads: Lets you adjust your ad preferences and limit how TikTok uses your off-app activity or demographic details to target promotions.
   • Contacts and location: Stops TikTok from suggesting your account to your phone contacts or Facebook friends. This is also where you prevent TikTok from using your device’s location to tailor your experience and clear the location data the app collects from your iPhone’s Location Services.

How to manage LinkedIn privacy settings

To make your LinkedIn profile more private, go to Settings > Visibility and review Profile viewing options and Edit your public profile. LinkedIn lets you manage how visible your profile is to recruiters and colleagues, as well as how the platform uses your professional data. You can access all of these controls under Settings:

1. Tap your profile picture, then Settings.
2. Tap Visibility:
   • Review the available options under Visibility of your profile & network. You can adjust settings for your public profile, profile viewing (including browsing other profiles in private mode), who can see your connections, and other information that LinkedIn displays to other members.
   • Review the available options under Visibility of your LinkedIn activity. You can control whether your connections are notified when you update your job title or are mentioned in the news, and whether others can see when you’re active on LinkedIn. This is also where you set who can follow your public posts or tag you.

   

3. Review the privacy options in Data privacy:
   • Social, economic, and workplace research: Opts your account out of third-party research studies.
   • Data for Generative AI: Stops LinkedIn from using your profile information and public posts to train its generative AI models. This setting is on by default. Private messages aren’t used and you can turn this setting off anytime.
   • Invitations to connect: Limits who can send you connection requests, such as anyone on the platform, only people who know your email address, or only people who appear in your “Imported Contacts” list.
   • Invitations from your network: Lets you filter what types of invites your network can send you, such as page, event, or newsletter invites.
   • Messages you receive: Sets who can message you directly, including recruiters sharing job opportunities or members sending paid InMail messages.
   • Research invitations: Lets you opt out of invitations from LinkedIn and its partners to take part in product feedback surveys, market research, and other studies.
   • LinkedIn marketing emails and promotions: Turns off promotional marketing emails and stops LinkedIn from tailoring product offers based on your LinkedIn activity and profile.
4. Review the options under Advertising data: these control how LinkedIn uses your profile and activity to personalize ads, including whether it can share your data with Microsoft and other affiliates for advertising.

How to manage Telegram privacy settings

By default, only your contacts can see your Telegram phone number. To change this and other privacy controls, go to Settings > Privacy and Security. Telegram lets you decide who can see your contact details, reach you by phone or message, and view your profile information. You can find these controls under Privacy and Security:

1. Open Telegram and tap Settings at the bottom right.
2. Tap Privacy and Security.
3. Review the privacy options under Privacy:
   

• Phone Number: Controls whether your phone number is visible on your profile and who can find your account with your phone number.
• Last Seen & Online: Limits who can check your online activity status or see when you were last active on the app. Keep in mind that if you hide your status from others, you won’t be able to see theirs either, unless you subscribe to Telegram Premium.
• Profile Photos: Chooses who’s allowed to see your profile picture, either everyone, your saved contacts, or nobody.
• Bio: Controls who can read the short description on your account page.
• Gifts: Adjusts whether gifts you receive appear on your public profile, and sets the gift shortcut icon to show up in your chat window.
• Birthday: Limits who can view your birth date on your profile.
• Saved Music: Keeps your saved music private or visible to select contacts.
• Forwarded Messages: Stops forwarded copies of your messages from linking back to your active profile.
• Calls: Manages who can place Telegram calls to you. By default, calls with your contacts connect directly, which shares your IP address with them. Set Peer-to-Peer to Never to route calls through Telegram servers instead and hide your IP address, though call quality might be slightly lower.
• Voice Messages: Restricts who can send you voice notes or video messages. (This control requires a Telegram Premium subscription).
• Messages: Restricts new direct message requests to specific contacts. (This control requires a Telegram Premium subscription. Standard accounts accept messages from everyone.)
• Invites: Prevents strangers or non-contacts from adding you to group chats and channels without your permission.

Keep in mind that regular Telegram chats aren’t end-to-end encrypted. They’re stored in Telegram’s cloud so you can access them from any device. For a conversation only you and the other person can read, start a Secret Chat. Secret Chats stay on the device where you started them.

A Telegram Premium subscription includes a few additional privacy options. It lets you watch stories discreetly without appearing in the viewer list, and lets you check who saw your own stories after they disappear. You can also prevent people from copying, saving, or forwarding messages from your private chats.

How to manage Snapchat privacy settings

To hide your location on Snapchat, turn on Ghost Mode in Settings > Privacy Controls > See My Location. Snapchat groups its location, messaging, and story protections under Privacy Controls in your settings menu:

1. Open Snapchat and tap your profile icon at the top-left corner.
2. Tap the gear icon in the top-right corner to open Settings.
3. Scroll down to the Privacy Controls section and review the options there:
   

• See My Location: Lets you set whether your location is visible to all your added friends or only specific people. You can also turn on Ghost Mode here, so no one can see your location at all. To stop Snapchat from accessing your location in the first place, also turn off its Location permission in your iPhone’s Settings app.
• Map: Lets you control your location data and visibility by deleting your location and Footsteps history, choosing whether your tagged places are used for friend recommendations, whether your username shows on posts to the Snap Map, and whether friends you share location with get notified of your recent travel.
• View My Story: Controls whether your Story is visible to only your friends or a custom list.
• Contact Me: Limits who can reach you directly with Snaps, text chats, or calls.
• See Me in Find Friends: Stops your account from being suggested to phone contacts or mutual friends as a recommended add.
• Activity Indicator: Turn this off if you don’t want others to see that you’ve been active on Snapchat recently.
• Game Activity: If you play games on Snapchat, you can keep your scores, rankings, and game achievements hidden from friends. You can also choose not to show your initials, Bitmoji, and in-game activity to other players in multiplayer games.
• Comment Settings: Manages comment approval for public posts, keeping replies hidden until you review and approve them.
• Generative AI Settings: Prevents Snapchat from using your public Stories, Spotlight clips, or Snap Map submissions to train its AI models.

How to manage Safari privacy settings

Safari’s privacy settings focus on blocking website tracking, managing cookies, and limiting what personal data websites can gather as you browse. Unlike the apps above, Safari has no account privacy settings. Its privacy controls are browser settings, and you change them in the Settings app rather than inside Safari:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Tap Apps > Safari.
3. Under General, turn on Block Pop-ups. This stops most websites from opening pop-up windows while you browse.
4. Review the privacy options under Privacy & Security:
   • Prevent Cross-Site Tracking: Limits how third-party trackers can follow your browsing habits across different websites.
   • Hide IP Address: Masks your IP address from recognized online trackers. If you subscribe to iCloud+, this can also hide your IP address from the websites you visit, via Private Relay.
   • Require Face ID to Unlock Private Browsing: In Settings > Apps > Safari, turn this on to require Face ID to unlock your Private Browsing tabs when they’re not in use. They may not lock immediately.
5. Review the privacy options under History and Website Data:
   • Clear History and Website Data: Lets you choose how far back to erase your browsing history (Last hour, Today, Today and yesterday, or All history), with the option to also close all your open tabs before erasing.
     
6. Scroll down and tap Advanced. Review the privacy options there:
   • Advanced Tracking and Fingerprinting Protection: Makes it harder for websites to track you or identify your device from its characteristics. Check that it’s set to All Browsing not just Private Browsing.
   • Block All Cookies: Stops websites from storing data on your phone. Note that turning this on may cause some websites not to work.

How to manage privacy settings in other iPhone apps

While every app layout is different, many apps organize their privacy controls in a similar way. Here’s a quick checklist for auditing any app on your phone:

1. Find the menu: Open the app and look for a profile picture, account icon, gear icon, or a menu labeled Settings.
2. Locate privacy tools: Look for a section labeled Privacy, Privacy & Security, or Account Privacy. Some apps also offer a guided privacy checkup that walks you through the main settings.
3. Review visibility settings: Look for options controlling who can see your profile, posts, activity, or other account information.
4. Check communication controls: Decide who can send you direct messages, follow your account, tag you in photos, or add you to group chats.
5. Review data collection: Look for settings related to personalization, advertising, analytics, location history, activity tracking, or using your content to train AI models.
6. Check connected accounts and devices: Remove accounts, services, or devices that don’t need access to your account.
7. Review iPhone permissions separately: Keep in mind that an app’s internal privacy menu is separate from your iPhone’s system permissions. Access to your camera, microphone, contacts, and location is controlled by iOS, and you can change it anytime in the Settings app (see How to control app permissions on iPhone).

App developers can move or rename settings when they release updates, so the menu paths in this guide may change over time. If a setting is missing, check the app’s current help documentation or search its settings for terms such as Privacy, Permissions, Tracking, or Data.

How to manage your child’s app privacy settings

If your child uses any of these apps, most of the settings above apply to their account too. Many platforms also give younger teens’ accounts stricter defaults, and some offer tools that let you supervise their settings from your own account. If you’re looking to protect your kids’ privacy on social media apps specifically, switching their accounts to private is usually the easiest place to start.

Start with each app’s parental tools:

• Instagram: Scroll down to Family Center in Settings and activity to send a supervision invite to your teen’s account. Once your teen accepts, you can manage how they use Instagram.
• Facebook: Family Center lets you supervise your teen’s account, with insight into their account settings and safety tools.
• TikTok: In Settings and privacy, open Family Pairing to link your account with your teen’s, a useful step if you have safety concerns about TikTok. This lets you manage their screen time, who can contact them, and their privacy settings remotely.
• Snapchat: Family Center sits further down in Settings, below Privacy Controls. It lets you see who your teen is talking to (but not what they say), restrict sensitive content, check privacy settings like location sharing, and report accounts that may break Snapchat’s rules.

Then review the options inside each app your child uses: who can see their profile, send them direct messages, add them to group chats, or tag them in posts. From there, move on to the phone’s built-in permissions to see which apps have access to things like location, photos, or the microphone.

If you want to set clearer boundaries, Screen Time in the Settings app lets you decide which apps are accessible and block content that isn’t right for their age.

Settings can do a lot of the heavy lifting, but they work best alongside open conversations. Talk together about why certain details should stay private, what to do if a stranger reaches out, and when to bring you in if something feels off.

Frequently asked questions

How do I manage my online privacy settings on iPhone?

Your online privacy settings on iPhone live in two places. Account settings inside each app control who can see your profile, posts, and activity. iOS permissions, in Settings > Privacy & Security, control what each app can access on your iPhone, such as your location, photos, camera, and microphone. Review both to limit what you share.

How do I manage privacy settings on X (formerly Twitter)?

To manage privacy settings on X, go to Settings and privacy > Privacy and safety. This is where you can adjust what others see about your account and limit how your data gets shared for personalization.

How do I make my Instagram account private?

Open Instagram and go to Settings and activity, select Account privacy, and turn on Private account. Once enabled, new followers need your approval, and only approved followers can see what you share.

Who can see my WhatsApp status by default?

By default, anyone saved in your contacts can see your WhatsApp status updates. If you want to limit who sees them, tap your profile icon in the bottom-right corner and head to Privacy > Status.

How do I control which apps can track me on my iPhone?

Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking, and turn off Allow Apps to Request to Track. If you prefer to handle things app by app, you can scroll down that same screen to turn off tracking for specific apps.

Are Safari’s privacy settings the same as an app’s privacy settings?

No, they handle two different things. Safari’s privacy settings focus on what websites can see about you, like cookies, location access, and your browsing history. An app’s privacy settings handle your presence inside that app, such as who can message you or see your account. You’ll want to look at both, but you adjust them in different places.

About Kamso Oguejiofor-Abugu