How do I prevent Personal Hotspot from automatically activating whenever a device decides to connect to my phone.

I'm amazed at the tone of the replies here. Millions of people let their kids share their own Apple IDs.
Mobile data costs money. If a hotspot has the option to be authorised, it also needs an option to be de-authorised.
Yes means yes, no means no. Not maybe.

If we should not share Apple IDs or devices, why do we have individual settings per device for restrictions? With no sharing, this would only need to be set once per Apple ID.
The reason is, Apple support for child ID, while better than most, is still only half thought out and half implemented.

Suppose I temporarily lend my iPad to a friend to make an Amazon order for example. I have a right to expect that mobile data will not get syphoned from the phone in my pocket.

But anyway, thank you for the link to submit feedback to Apple. I shall be using it.

Chip_OLata wrote:

I'm amazed at the tone of the replies here. Millions of people let their kids share their own Apple IDs.
Mobile data costs money. If a hotspot has the option to be authorised, it also needs an option to be de-authorised.
Yes means yes, no means no. Not maybe.

Millions of people are making a serious mistake by doing so. The hotspot is the least of the issues. Your children can see every text that you send or receive, every email, every photo, all of your contacts, all of your calendar entries. And there is no reason to share your iCloud ID; that's what Family Sharing is for.

Suppose I temporarily lend my iPad to a friend to make an Amazon order for example. I have a right to expect that mobile data will not get syphoned from the phone in my pocket.

Yes you do.

And if (wisely) you have him use his own Apple ID on your device, this issue will not happen to you. He will require your full knowledge and cooperation to get a wifi connection from your device.

Just as Apple has designed the system to do. To Apple's systems, 2 devices with a common Apple ID belong to the same user.

Would you hand him your wallet to allow him to create an Amazon order?

The "hole" is that a laptop can connect to the phone and use up lots of data whithout the phone's owner knowing it is happening.

Since the laptop and phone must be using the same Apple ID, I don't see how this can be true.

I haven’t read all gazillion posts, but I have been having data usage problems on my phone for weeks, and I’ve never had that, ever. We’ve also been having Wifi issues during that same time. Turns out it’s my iPad activating hotspot on my phone when it can’t get Wifi. I’ve tried disable hotspot, forget network, etc. Nothing worked until I went into settings on the iPad, joined the phone hotspot, disabled Autojoin, then Forget this Network. I can still see the hotspot on the iPad, but it does not activate the disabled hotspot on my phone without my knowledge. Which would explain the identical iPads behaving differently. Having said all that, I’m sure everyone here figured this out months ago and I just couldn’t find it. FWIW.

I haven’t read all gazillion posts, but I have been having data usage problems on my phone for weeks, and I’ve never had that, ever. We’ve also been having Wifi issues during that same time. Turns out it’s my iPad activating hotspot on my phone when it can’t get Wifi. I’ve tried disable hotspot, forget network, etc. Nothing worked until I went into settings on the iPad, joined the phone hotspot, disabled Autojoin, then Forget this Network. I can still see the hotspot on the iPad, but it does not activate the disabled hotspot on my phone without my knowledge. Which would explain the identical iPads behaving differently. Having said all that, I’m sure everyone here figured this out months ago and I just couldn’t find it. Fwiw

Well actually that wasn’t it.

From the phone itself:

Settings, General, Restrictions, On, scroll down to Allow Changes section, Cellular Data, check Don’t Allow Changes for both Cellular and Cellular Plan

My iphone 6 running iOS 11 in its wifi settings shows my iphone 7 running iOS 10 The 7 has personal hotspot off but if it is chosen in the wi-fi settings the 6 turns is on and automatically connects to the 7 without even requiring the password that is shown in the iphone 7 hotspot settings! I have tried to correct this for some time with no success. Today I found that turning off Bluetooth on either device removes the hotspot from the wi-fi settings on the iphone 6.

I have turned it off on the 6 since it has a headphone jack I can use wired headphones. The 7 of course has no headphone jack. Thanks so much apple for this needless change! So I have chosen to leave bluetooth on in the 7. No I do not want to use the tiny breakable and easily lost headphone jack dongle that came with the 7. Pehaps this is helpful to others as a workaround but the real issues are 1. Why can one device turn on the hotspot of another when it is OFF by choice? 2. Why is there a password when it is not required? 3. How to make that the password is required before access can happen?

I'm surprised by people who argue that this behavior is by design.

I have two iphone 7s, each with different carrier.

One is with capped data plan (with slowed down connection after the limit), the other is an incremental data addition (with rather high cap, $$$).

A single apple ID is set in both devices and I'm carrying both most if time. Both have BT on.

Recently one iphone started to use the other's LTE data by turning Hotspot on. This often happens when I go out and it keeps doing it even after I come back home. Both should use home wifi, obviously.

To those who insist that this is by design, a question:

Which iphone initiates remote hotspot to sneak in to the other to steal lte bandwidth even though both devices aer allotted proper LTE data plan?

If this behavior us by design their must be rules that determines which device gets the hotspot role. Any user-readable documentation anwhere?

Who earns much money from this?

It's super clear that it is cellular carriers who gets most money. Its easy to imagine that Apple is doing this to help cellular carreirs.

What you see is if the devices you go there are using your same icloud account. Other devices will not be able to see your hotspot unless you switch the the hotspot in the settings app. If you still interested in not able to see your hotspot on the wifi menu, I think you can try signin out on those devices and create a separate icloud account.

There is no security hole because only devices logged in with the same Apple ID can use this feature. Other devices will not be able to enable the Wi-Fi hotspot on your iPhone remotely.

This is a very convenient feature as you can enable the Wi-Fi hotspot on your iPhone on demand from any of your other Apple devices without having to touch your iPhone. If you are using your MacBook and need to get on the Internet via your iPhone's LTE connection, you can enable your iPhones Wi-Fi hotspot directly from your MacBook without having to take your iPhone out of your bag or your pocket.

Reading through most of this thread I have an issue with my personal hotspot which drives me crazy. For my car I have personal hotspot turned on, and whenever i plug it in to charge on my macbook macos disconnects from the perfectly working wifi connection and starts to use my cellular data. Is there a way I didn't discover or is this a flaw in the way networking works in macos?

Reading all this - Hotspot setting on iPhone can be

overridden by a device on same cloud appleid without any confirmation.

This happened to me last night and cost me network charges before I realised what was happening .

This cannot be right - even if all on same network and cloud etc . As people here have said , off should mean off and only reset either on the device itself or via explicit acceptance .

iCloud IDs are PERSONAL. You should never share an iCloud ID. If you do, many bad things will happen; this is only one of them. If you control all of the devices on your ICloud ID this will never happen. Personal hotspot never connects automatically; someone must explicitly choose it.