What happens in your iPhone stays...
in any other place where YOU sent it yourself, obviously.
There is this slogan about iPhones being totally respectful of your privacy:
Stays in your iPhone? NOT
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“What happens in your iPhone stays on your iPhone”…
that is as technically true as it is half misleading, half irrelevant.
Apple may respect your privacy as no other corporation. It doesn’t matter. The truth is that whatever happens in your iPhone also stays in the central databases of whatever data-harvesting-based organization whose apps you are running right now in your iPhone (or Android phone, of course).
From this point of view, which is the one that matters the most from multiple points of view, it doesn’t make any difference whether your smartphone runs iOS or Android: if you use apps like those by Amazon, Facebook or Instagram, Gmail, Google Maps.. you will continue to send to some for-profit organization more information about you than you yourself (and your “friends” too! ever knew.
Ditto for instant messaging, of course. WhatsApp and any other system so idiotic to demand you a) use your phone number as user account and b) are unbelievably rude to all your contacts leak much more about you and your contacts than you realize, by design.
You can’t get around this: whatever happens on your smartphone stays wherever you let it go.
Who writes this, why, and how to help
I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
I do it because YOUR civil rights and the quality of YOUR life depend every year more on how software is used AROUND you.
To this end, I have already shared more than a million words on this blog, without any paywall or user tracking, and am sharing the next million through a newsletter, also without any paywall.
The more direct support I get, the more I can continue to inform for free parents, teachers, decision makers, and everybody else who should know more stuff like this. You can support me with paid subscriptions to my newsletter, donations via PayPal (mfioretti@nexaima.net) or LiberaPay, or in any of the other ways listed here.THANKS for your support!