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The One App You Should Delete From Your iPhone To Keep Your Identity From Being Stolen, According To A Security Expert

October 17, 2020 by SHEfinds Editors
shefinds | News

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Protecting your privacy is a major concern when you have an iPhone. Not only are you storing private information like contacts, photos, and messages in your phone, but there are a handful of apps that are either collecting your data (be aware of free apps, since nothing is truly free) or simply aren’t as secure as they could be. This is the one app you should delete from your iPhone to keep your identity from being stolen, according to a security experts.

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iphone

The top two apps you can delete to keep your privacy safe are actually connected to the same source: Facebook and Facebook Messenger.

 

When you download the Facebook app, it asks permission to access everything from your camera and microphone to your location, WiFi, and internal storage. Whether or not there is a decent claim that it requires this information to run the way you want it to is not the point, you are still agreeing to fork over your privacy in exchange for easy access of the social media site.

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The Facebook app can tell when you have logged on and how long you are logged in, which may not be all that surprising. What can come as a shock to some users is that it also tracks the sites you scroll outside of Facebook, what you are buying, and even the topics you are looking up so that it can provide its advertisers with curated information that allows them to better target you based on your habits and interests.

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There’s an explanation for why Facebook seems to be able to read your mind. Even if you merely mentioned a topic like “red shoes” to a friend via the platform, you may be bombarded with half a dozen ads featuring — you guess it— red shoes.

 

While you can easily delete the Facebook app and use Facebook via your browser, the same can’t be done with Facebook Messenger, which requires the app to access your personal messages via your smartphone. And this is where another privacy problem rears its ugly head. 

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The problem with Facebook Messenger is that it does not use end-to-end encryption. In other words, your messages are not secure on Facebook’s end and a Facebook employee with login credentials can read your messages. While the purpose of this may be, in theory, to block fake news and other potentially harmful content, the reality is that your private messages are still not 100 percent private.

 

It’s up to the user to decide whether the benefits of Facebook and Facebook Messenger outweigh privacy concerns — but when it comes to apps that are risky with your data, these two are far up the list.

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Author:

The SheFinds Editorial Team scours the web to find the best in fashion and beauty so that our busy readers don't have to. We're online shopping junkies to the core. You can reach us via email [email protected].

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