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With iOS 17, Apple introduced a new privacy setting that gives users much more granular control over which apps can access their photo albums. Since then, it has evolved to offer even more granularity and transparency. Here’s how to limit and manage photo sharing on your device.
Why limit photo access?
Not everyone knows this, but when you let an app access the photos in your library, it can also read their metadata. Or as Apple puts it:
“Photos may contain data associated with location, depth information, captions, and audio”.
In other words, if an app has free access to your entire photo album, that means it could get a pretty good idea of where you live, where you work, what times you are not home, and the places you’ve been, just by looking at the metadata.
While most apps are responsible and respect users’ privacy, it should still be the users’ choice to pick which apps, if any, can access which photos in their albums.
Fortunately, Apple’s privacy settings allow for just that.
Choose which photos each app can see
On your iPhone, head to Settings > Privacy & Security > Photos.
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