Apple Will Protect Your Personal Data

Now You'll Never Be The Next Jennifer Lawrence

Apple's news software update, iOS8, is finally available for download on most Apple devices. This new update will not change your phone's whole design, like iOS7, but has some new interesting features to make your iPhone easier to use. With iOS8, you can now take a time-lapse video using the camera and even share your recent iTunes buys with family and friends. But iOS8 does more than that - it now protects your personal data like never before.

Apple have announced, in an interesting turn of events, that they will no longer be able to access your personal data such as "photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders" for those whose phones are protected by a passcode. Because Apple cannot access your data, that means that they cannot give access to other parties, even those who have warrants.

Apple also want to be more transparent about where requests to access individual's phones come from, revealing that fewer than 0.00385% customers have has their data disclosed, due to government requests. Is there enough to erase their bad reputation? Apple is finally committing to protecting its users after many blamed them for the naked celebrity picture leak. Although it is still unclear whether iCloud is included in this privacy update, and the best way to protect your personal information is to turn off iCloud altogether.

Apple is not the only one to take a step in this direction. Android, Apple's main competitor, will provide default encryption on their new phones. Encryption was already available on Android phones but only if the user turned it on themselves, meaning that the user had to know how to do it. One major difference between the two companies is that Apple is able to offer this privacy protection to all its users at once, on iPhone or iPad alike, whereas it will take a lot longer for all Android users to have all their data encrypted by default (in the meantime these users can find out how to turn data encryption on their phones).

While your phones will become a lot more secure, it is still not secure enough to have a load of revealing pictures on your phone. While no one will care, unless you are an A-List celebrity, you still cannnot know who can access your phone as there are still other ways to bypass Apple's privacy protection.

Laura Veit

Laura is a recent graduate from University of East Anglia in Film and Television Studies, currently interning as a content writer but hoping to one day live off her writing. Follow her @LauraAtSMF.

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