Stop apps accessing personal info when they don’t need to

Whenever you open an app for the first time, you’ll see a range of permission requests (for example, Facebook will ask to use your location, camera and microphone). Without thinking, many of us tap Accept to these requests for what is – after all – fairly sensitive data.

From time to time, it’s a good idea to check which permissions apps have been granted that they don’t really need, and revoke these. Thankfully, this is fairly easy to do on both Android and IOS.

On Android, open Settings, tap ‘Apps & notifications’, then ‘App permissions’ (or Permissions). You’ll see permissions listed for, among others, Calendar, Contacts, Camera, Location, Microphone and SMS. Select one to see all the apps that have access to the information provided by that feature. Switch off the slider beside any app you want to prevent from accessing the info (see screenshot below left). For example, we noticed that our Daily Mail app had access to our contacts and calendar, which it obviously doesn’t need.

On an iphone and ipad, open Settings, then tap Privacy. You’ll see a screen with app permissions listed for the same type of features. Select one to see the apps with access to that feature, then tap the slider to block access.

If you’ve revoked an app’s permission to use a specific feature that it needs to carry out a task, you’ll see a pop-up message requesting permission. Tap Allow if you’re happy to do that.