Your mobile apps are watching you: Change these settings to stop them

The apps on your phone know a lot about you. They know where you are every moment of the day and night. They know what websites you visit and what you look at when you’re there. They know all your basic info—age, gender, email, phone number, birthplace, address—and far more beyond that.

This is the price we pay for “free” (or cheap) apps. We get to use them and, in return, we let them collect our personal information by agreeing to a list of permissions that most of us never read.

And what do the apps do with all this information? They build profiles of us that are accurate to the smallest detail. Are you a woman in your late 30s who votes blue, has houseplants and likes salsa dancing? Facebook knows this. Google knows it too. So do the massive data brokers that compile profiles of individuals and sell those profiles to advertisers so the advertisers can send targeted ads to people.

It’s called surveillance capitalism and, realistically, there is no way to opt out of it. But there are steps you can take to at least limit the amount of personal information that your apps collect.

Check what data apps want

You can see what personal data an app will be gathering before you download it. Open the Play Store and tap the app you want to download. Then scroll all the way down to Data safety to see a list of the data types collected.

Read the permissions

When you download and install an app, your phone will ask you if you want to grant the app permission to access various features of your phone, like your camera and your messages. You should deny any permissions that don’t make sense. For example, why does that weather app want to access your photos?

If you’re concerned about the permissions granted to the apps already on your phone, you can review them and revoke any that seem suspicious. Here’s how.

Android

Open Settings. Tap Apps. Tap the app you want to review. (If you can’t find it, tap See all apps.) Tap Permissions. Now you can choose to Allow or Not allow various permissions for the app.

iOS

Go to Settings > Privacy & Security. Tap a category of information, such as Calendars, Reminders or Motion & Fitness. A list will appear showing the apps that have access to this information. You can turn access on or off for any app on the list.

Disable ad ID tracking

Your mobile device has an ad identifier that enables third parties like advertisers and data brokers to track your activity. You can disable it, which will make it harder for them to track you. This will reduce (but not completely stop) the collection of your personal information by mobile apps.

Android

These steps should work for most Android versions. Open Settings. Tap Security and privacy > Ads. Tap Delete advertising ID.

iOS

Go to Settings. Tap Privacy & Security > Apple advertising. Toggle off Personalized ads.

Switch to CREDO Mobile

We’re the one mobile service that cares about privacy as much as you do. That’s why we support the ACLU, whose Privacy and Technology division defends your right to privacy and protects you against surveillance technologies. And Fight for the Future, which advocates technology as a force for liberation, not oppression.

Join CREDO Mobile and you’ll get all you want from your phone company: the nation’s largest, most reliable network, competitive plans, great deals on new phones and friendly customer service.

And you’ll get much more. You’ll get an easy, effective way to make change in the world.

Switching is easy. You can bring your current phone and your current number. Just go to CREDOMobile.com.