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Updated on: September 25, 2026
Originally published on: September 25, 2026
Smartphone privacy is something worth thinking about when our phones go pretty much everywhere with us. We use them to check email, scroll social media, shop, pay bills, get directions, book trips, take pictures, and handle dozens of other little things throughout the day. With all of that convenience comes a lot of personal information sitting right there in the palm of your hand.
Keeping that information safer doesn’t mean you need to know everything there is to know about technology. Most of it comes down to paying attention to a few settings and changing some everyday habits, especially when you’re shopping online, traveling, or using your phone away from home.
Think Twice Before Using Public Wi-Fi
Free Wi-Fi is hard to resist when you’re sitting at an airport, hotel, coffee shop, or even waiting for an appointment. It saves your data and usually takes just a few seconds to connect. Before connecting, though, it’s a good idea to know a few basic public Wi-Fi safety tips.
One way to add some extra privacy is with a virtual private network, or VPN. A VPN encrypts the connection between your device and the VPN service, making it more difficult for someone else on the same network to see your internet traffic. If you use an iPhone or iPad, for example, you can download ios vpn software and use it when you’re connected to public Wi-Fi.
A VPN isn’t a magic shield for everything you do online, though. You still need to watch which websites you visit, be careful about entering personal information, and pay attention when something doesn’t look quite right.
Stop Reusing the Same Password
I get it. Remembering a different password for every single account is a pain, especially when nearly everything seems to require you to set up an account these days. Using the same password everywhere is easier, but it can also cause a much bigger headache if that password ever falls into the wrong hands.
If someone gets the login information for one account, they can try those same credentials on your email, shopping accounts, social media, and other sites.
A password manager makes this much easier to deal with. It lets you use different, stronger passwords without having to remember every single one yourself.
You can also check the passwords already saved on your phone. Both Apple and Google have built-in features that can warn you about passwords that are weask, reused, or may have been involved in a known data breach. If you haven’t looked at yours lately, you may be surprised by what you find.
Add Two-Factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication, or 2FA, is another simple way to make an account harder for someone else to access.
With 2FA turned on, your password alone usually isn’t enough to sign in. You may also need a code from an authenticator app, a security key, or another form of verification. Using multifactor authentication adds another layer of security if someone gets hold of your password.
It does add an extra step when you’re logging in, which can be annoying when you’re in a hurry. Still, I’d rather spend a few extra seconds signing in than deal with someone getting into an important account.
You don’t necessarily have to tackle every account at once. Start with the ones that contain the most personal information, such as your main email account, financial accounts, cloud storage, and social media.
Check What Your Apps Can Access
Think about how many times you’ve downloaded an app and tapped through the permission screens without giving them much thought. Camera access? Sure. Photos? Fine. Location? Whatever gets me into the app.
Over time, that can leave quite a few apps with access to information they may not actually need, which is why checking app permissions is an important part of smartphone privacy.
Go through the privacy settings on your phone every so often and see which apps can access your camera, microphone, photos, contacts, and location. A weather app may need your general location to give you a local forecast. A random game probably doesn’t need to know where you are all day.
While you’re there, get rid of apps you haven’t used in forever. There’s no reason to keep a phone full of apps you don’t even remember downloading.
Don’t Keep Putting Off Updates
Software update notifications have a special talent for showing up when you don’t feel like dealing with them. It’s easy to keep hitting the option to do it later, especially when your phone seems to be working perfectly fine.
Those updates aren’t only about new emojis, features, or changing where a button lives. They can also contain important security fixes.
The same applies to the apps on your phone. Keeping your phone’s operating system and apps updated helps make sure you have the latest security patches as they become available. Turning on automatic updates can take one more thing off your to-do list.
Slow Down Before Clicking a Link
Scam texts and emails aren’t always easy to spot anymore. Some look surprisingly convincing, and they tend to show up with just enough urgency to make you react before thinking.
Your package couldn’t be delivered. Your account has been suspended. A payment didn’t go through. There’s a problem with your bank account. Click here immediately.
That “do this right now” feeling is a good reason not to.
Instead of clicking a link in an unexpected message, open the company’s official app or go directly to its website. Knowing how to recognize and avoid phishing scams can also help you spot some of the tricks scammers use. If there really is a problem with your account or an order, you should be able to find the information there.
Be particularly careful with any message asking you to provide a password, verification code, or financial information. Taking another minute to check where a message actually came from is worth it.
Make Sure Your Phone Is Locked
A lot of smartphone privacy advice focuses on hackers and scams, but there’s another much simpler possibility: losing your phone.
Use a strong passcode along with Face ID, Touch ID, or the biometric security available on your Android device. That way, someone who finds or steals your phone can’t simply pick it up and start going through everything.
Check your lock screen notifications while you’re at it. Depending on your settings, incoming texts, emails, and other notifications may display information even while your phone is locked. You can change those settings if you’d rather keep message previews private.
And make sure your phone’s device-finding feature is turned on now, rather than trying to figure it out after your phone disappears.
Back Up the Stuff You Care About
Not every phone disaster involves someone stealing your information. Sometimes phones get lost, dropped, broken, or decide they’ve simply had enough of this world.
If the only copies of your photos, videos, contacts, notes, or important documents are stored on your phone, losing the device can mean losing those things too.
Set up regular backups using cloud storage, your computer, an external drive, or whatever method works best for you. Having more than one copy of irreplaceable photos and important files is even better.
A Few Minutes Is All It Takes
Better smartphone privacy doesn’t require turning your phone into Fort Knox or becoming a cybersecurity expert. Most of these changes take only a few minutes, and several of them can be set up once and left to work in the background.
Take a look at your passwords. Turn on 2FA for the accounts that matter most. Check which apps have access to your location and photos. Install those updates you’ve been ignoring. And the next time a text insists that you click a link immediately, give it another look before you do.
We keep an incredible amount of our lives on our phones these days. Spending a little time making sure all of that information is better protected just makes sense.