Your iPhone Has an Important New Feature for Maintaining Privacy and Security — And You Should Definitely Be Using It « iOS & iPhone :: Gadget Hacks

To find it, navigate to Settings –> Privacy & Security –> Safety Check.

On the Safety Check page, the “Manage Sharing & Access” link lets you customize the people and apps that access your information, while the “Emergency Reset” link just nukes all their permissions. Both options include a security review for your Apple ID account and iPhone.

Whether you use one or the other or neither, there’s a “Quick Exit” link in the top right for you to exit the process at any time.

Select “Manage Sharing & Access,” and you’ll be able to manage what people and apps have access to certain documents and permissions. It’s important to note that any changes you make during the process will be saved, so the “Quick Exit” button won’t do you any good if you have already saved a change.

According to Apple, “people may notice if you stop sharing your information with them,” which makes sense since some data includes shared calendars, photos, notes, and more. If people share information with you and you end those shared relationships, you will lose access to the shared data unless it’s their location or Health data.

Tap “Continue” to start managing information sharing and access.

Safety Check will show you all the people you share content and data with. Health, Home, Calendar, Find My, Notes, and Photos (Shared Library and Shared Albums included) are all possibilities you’ll see in this step.

You can tap “Skip” if you don’t want to change anything. If you want to nuke all shares with all people, tap “Select All & Stop Sharing,” read the warning, and hit “Stop All Sharing.”

If you want to stop sharing specific data with specific people, check each of their names and select the “Review Sharing” button. Safety Check will walk you through each contact, showing you the categories of data being shared with them. If you don’t want to do anything, tap “Skip” to review the next person. You can also tap “Select All & Stop Sharing” to revoke all data. Or you can check certain items and hit “Stop Sharing.”

Alternatively, you can open the “Information” tab to view the type of data being shared in case you want to cut the cord for everyone in specific categories. Like the “People” tab, you can “Skip” to the next step or nuke all shares by tapping “Select All & Stop Sharing,” reading the warning, and hitting “Stop All Sharing.”

Or you could check categories and tap “Review Sharing” to review what people can access them. Each category lists the people with access, and you can “Skip” them all or check names and hit “Stop Sharing” to show the following category or finish the Manage Sharing & Access tool’s first step.

After completing step one, tap “Continue” or “Review More People” if you want to go back and remove more shared access for other people.

The second step shows you all the apps on your iPhone that are accessing your information in one way or another. This information includes Bluetooth, Calendars, Camera, Contacts, Files, Folders, Health, Local Network, Location Services, Media, Apple Music, Microphone, Motion, Fitness, Photos, Reminders, Research, and Speech Recognition.

You can tap “Skip” if you don’t want to change anything. If you want to nuke all access and permissions with all apps, tap “Select All & Stop Access,” read the warning, and hit “Stop All Access.”

If you immediately see all the information an app can access, tap the (i) next to it to see everything. Here, you can also check specific items and tap “Stop App Access” to halt permissions right away, tap “Delete App” to remove the app from your iPhone, or “Skip” to go back to the apps list.

The last step deals with the general security of your Apple ID account and iPhone. The items you’ll review here may differ from what’s seen below depending on how you set things up.

If you see a “Devices” list, you can “Skip” it or check one or more devices and hit “Remove Selected Devices.” You can also tap the (i) next to each device to review models, versions, serial numbers, and IMEIs; Tap “Devices” to return to the main list or choose “Remove from Account” if you no longer want the device linked to your Apple ID.

You may be asked if you want to update your Apple ID password. Tap “Update Later in Settings” if you don’t want to or “Update Password” to go through the process.

Select “Emergency Reset,” followed by “Start Emergency Reset,” and you’ll disable all the sharing, permissions, and access seen in Option 1 above in Steps 1 and 2. You’ll still walk through Step 3 above one by one since those things all need manual review. Apple recommends only using this option when your personal safety is at risk.