Private Address turned off by itself on 5Ghz home network

Hello,


I am iPhone XS user. Since I really care about my privacy and safety of my home network, I just wanted to ask a situation that happened me last night. My router is Xiaomi Mi Router 4A.


Last night, I was at my living room, this room is far away from router so, 5ghz is very slow while I am in this room. Because of this I generally keep wifi off at there use my mobile data. After I leave my living room and get near to router, I have turned off my mobile and opened wifi to connect 5ghz, It automatically connected my 5ghz wifi however, as first time I saw there is a privacy warning under my 5ghz wifi name, I clicked on WiFi and saw that it was stating my private address is turned off. I have checked the private address setting and It was really turned off by itself. I didn't turned it off and it was on same day's morning. Immediately I have checked my 2.4Ghz and the setting was still turned on, there wasn't any problem. Switched back to 5ghz it was still turned off and I turned on myself and the warning is gone.

So my question is, why this happened, why the settings turned itself off , on my 5GHz network?


Also I can say that this network was known by my device before iOS 14 install, so according to this article it's a previously-known network.


About private Wi-Fi addresses and enterprise networks - Apple Support

Posted on Dec 14, 2020 11:20 AM

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4 replies

Dec 15, 2020 1:37 AM in response to theArkhamKnight

That would be unusual but don’t get too concerned. The term Private Address may be overstating the benefit.

At home the feature simply creates one spoof MAC address. That is it. Furthermore every time you reconnect to that router you get the same spoof MAC address.

What it does is to fool any attempts by anyone including the big companies from associating one MAC address with a user for marketing, and you only get real benefit by moving from WIFI to WIFI out on your travels and generating multiple addresses.

Staying in like I do there’s no benefit.

The only way to get a fresh spoof MAC address at home is to reset network settings on your phone.

Hope this calms your fears even if it doesn’t explain the change in status.

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Private Address turned off by itself on 5Ghz home network

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