Privacy

It’s an app on my iPhone - ‘messages’ - y’know, where I send and receive all my texts.

My privacy report, found for the first time a week ago, has turned my life inside out! I had no idea the access all areas I have given away, by stealth, to data harvesters and I feel stalked and my life will never be the same. I am a recluse by choice so to have found all this out has decanted me:

So any help I can get would be so much appreciated. I hardly spend any money - I don’t even make minimum wage! So I am no loss to the data brokers I can promise that.

I just want to go back to my quiet, solitary, harmless life with me and my dog.

please, can anyone help me achieve this?

Hmm ok but this is my text message app, I’ve never sent an audio message - when it was last accessed, my microphone, I can’t work out how I would fumble - but, there are multiple other Apple apps that aren’t listed in my privacy section and when I go to the app in general settings, there’s no option to prevent access. Not just my microphone, but for example, the Apple health app accessing my photos and contacts. Or their podcast one doing the same. I fully accept that the internet can’t be free, my browsing history and activities are fair game. But when I found out last week that by default apps such as my pension provider, my TV account, my bank even the cross word puzzle I play - for the past decade, they have had access to all areas of my life. Not just my conversations, but my documents- private letters about deeply personal matters. Every time i talk - even to say hello to a shop keeper, my microphone is accessed! My location tracked. I wouldn’t be happy if even my best friend put a camera in my home. But every day, I’m not joking, apps are sending 1,000s of bits of my life to domains in their 100s per app and website I visit - I have no idea who these people are. What they see. And the GDPR is the only thing protecting us? I feel so vulnerable and exposed. I have a serious health condition that is very difficult to manage because of this kind of activity. I’ve asks around and no one I’ve spoken to had any idea about the depths of surveillance we are all experiencing. Even when I try and protect myself I still don’t have any way of knowing if it’s been successful.

lol, I’m definitely not worth a dime. I’m a nobody. Just a regular joe. I freaked out I guess, I had no idea the level of surveillance that apps could trick me into giving them. And of course, the internet has to be funded somehow and selling us stuff is a legitimate avenue.

it’s the long term use of all this information that troubles me. You know, the blurred lines between promoting, influencing, coercing, brainwashing, controlling..

But thank you for explaining, like you said, if I still feel like I’m being watched 24/7, I’ll have to ditch my smart phone and go back to the old days :)