Apple announces iOS15, major updates on privacy protections

Apple today previewed the new privacy protections in iOS15, iPadOs 15, macOS Monterey, and watchOS 8.  

In the Mail app, Mail Privacy Protection stops senders from using invisible pixels to collect information about the user. The new feature helps users prevent senders from knowing when they open an email, and masks their IP address so it can’t be linked to other online activity or used to determine their location.  In addition, this year Intelligent Tracking Prevention will hide the user’s IP address from trackers. 

App Privacy Report helps users to see how often each app has used the permission to access their location, photos, camera, microphone, and contacts during the past seven days.  Users can also find out with whom their data may be shared by seeing all the third-party domains an app is contacting. 

Now as default, the audio of users’ requests is processed with on-device speech recognition on iPhone and iPad.  As for Siri requests, it can be done without the internet connection such as changing settings, music control, and launching the apps.

Apple also introduces iCloud+, a new premium features that include iCloud Private Relay, Hide My Email, and expanded HomeKit Secure Video support.  Built right into iCloud is a new internet privacy service called Private Relay.  When browsing with Safari, Private Relay will ensure all traffic leaving a user’s device is encrypted so no one can access and read it, including Apple or the user’s network provider.  The first assigns the user an anonymous IP address that maps to their region but not their actual location. The second decrypts the web address they want to visit and forwards them to their destination. This separation of information protects the user’s privacy because no single entity can identify both who a user is and which sites they visit. 

Another feature will be added is Hide My Email which allow users to share unique, random email addresses that forward to their personal inbox so they can keep their personal email address private.  

iCloud+ will have the built-in support for HomeKit Secure Video.  The support allows users to connect cameras while providing end-to-end encrypted for home security video footage and it will not count against their storage capacity.  HomeKit Secure Video also ensures that activity detected by users’ security cameras is analyzed and encrypted by their Apple devices at home before being securely stored in iCloud.