Helping users review privacy and access settings that they might have shared with a formerly trusted partner.

At last week's WWDC22, Apple introduced a new feature called Safety Check in iOS 16. The new feature is designed to protect people in abusive relationships, and you can think of it as a privacy kill switch. The goal here is to help users be able to quickly review their access and privacy settings that they might have shared with a formerly trusted partner, and then revoke this access.

The apps included in this review are Find My, FaceTime, Contacts, various location settings, along with other data and emails as well as the option to perform an emergency reset of all of your devices connected to a shared iCloud account. 

One prototype screen shared at the conference was this “Sharing with People” summary, which shows you who you're sharing various data elements with. Given the number of individual privacy and sharing settings available across your entire app portfolio, this is a very helpful feature, which can also be used by anyone that is interested in reviewing their privacy and security settings.

Image credit: Apple

As we've written about before, people in abusive relationships can’t easily sever their digital ties. To combat this issue, Apple worked with several domestic violence NGOs in the US and Australia to develop Safety Check. Apple has made some progress in this arena after it was brought to light that AirTags were being used to monitor and stalk users without their knowledge a few months ago.

Apple said iOS 16 is now available to registered beta testers and should be in wide release by this fall. The new iOS is the latest in a series of privacy-enhancing features that Apple has been building into its mobile (and desktop) OSs. Last spring, Apple released iOS 14.5 with a special “App Tracking Transparency” switch. This prevents advertisers from using tracking pixels to identify your online browsing pathways.  

Then included in both iOS 15 and MacOS Monterey, any email you open will now route through a relay that loads any tracking pixels there before sending the email onto you, as long as you use Apple’s Mail app. Apple has been making a bigger deal of its privacy enhancement features, showing this TV ad that shows how a typical user can control their privacy.