Apple iOS 15.2 Introduces New ‘App Privacy Report’

Apple released iOS 15.2 for iPhones on Monday, Dec. 13. The new update adds over a dozen new features and changes to iOS, but one feature in particular is quite useful for identifying any apps on your phone that are taking advantage of your privacy and security.

App Privacy Report is a new Apple feature that gives you a run-down on all the apps on your iPhone. This report spills the beans on apps that use your microphone, location, camera, etc., including how often they use these items, and what their network activity is like. If there are any apps that steal your location data and report back to another website, for example, it’ll get caught in this report.

You should be prepared for some of your favorite to have some questionable data listed here. However, not all of it will be nefarious; your weather app, for example, might be using a lot of your location data, but it has to in order to give you weather reports for your current location. You’ll need to be the judge of whether this data use is sketchy, and whether you want to limit permissions for certain apps, or remove them from your iPhone altogether.

When you update to iOS 15.2, head to Settings > Privacy > App Privacy Report. Now, just tap Turn On App Privacy Report.