Android comes with a host of privacy features, but many of them are buried deep in settings, so they’re often left unused. It’s worth using these features to guard against invasive targeted ads, unauthorized access, and theft.

7

You Can’t Escape Ads, But You Can Choose the Ones You See

Ads are an inevitable part of using Google services, and each Google account has a unique advertising ID which stores and uses your topics of interest to show you more relevant ads.

If you’d rather not share this data, you can opt to either delete your advertising ID completely, or reset it to start fresh if you’re seeing irrelevant ads across Google services. Keep in mind that deleting your ad ID doesn’t remove ads, but it can make them feel a bit less invasive.

To do this, go to Settings > Google > All services > Ads. Here, tap Delete advertising ID to not see personalized ads, or Reset advertising ID to generate a new one that apps will use to show you relevant ads.

6

App Pinning Helps Ensure People Don’t Snoop Through My Stuff

If you’re handing over your phone to someone for a bit while you’re away, you want to make sure they don’t go snooping through your private photos and files, and remain on the app they said they need your phone for.

That’s where app pinning comes in. It’s an underrated but incredibly useful Android feature that allows you to lock an app in place, so no one accidentally or intentionally navigates away from it. It’s perfect for when you’re temporarily lending your phone to someone.

For instance, if you’re a parent, you can pin a mobile game to the screen before handing over your phone to your kids to make sure they don’t accidentally delete something important while you’re doing chores. Follow these steps to use app pinning:

1. Go to Settings > Security and privacy > More security settings > Allow apps to be pinned.
2. Toggle the feature on and make sure Lock phone after unpinning is also enabled.
3. Open the Recents screen, tap the icon of the app you want to pin, and tap Pin this app.

To unpin an app, long press the Home and Recents button simultaneously if you’re using button navigation, or swipe up and hold from the bottom of the screen if you’re using swipe gestures. Once unpinned, you’ll be taken back to the lock screen and required to unlock it to continue.

5

Theft Protection Can Save Your Data Even If You Lose Your Phone

Google has added a bunch of new theft protection features to Android to make sure your personal data remains safe even if your phone falls into the wrong hands. You can find these under Settings > Security and privacy > Lost device protection > Theft protection.

The first feature is theft detection lock, which automatically locks the screen if it detects that someone snatched your phone and ran away. This is really useful because, in such cases, you wouldn’t have the time to lock your screen, and so the thief would gain access to all your data, which is way worse than just losing the hardware.

With theft detection lock enabled, there’s less of a chance that the thief will be able to access your personal files. However, since many sudden movements are intentional, it’s difficult to accurately estimate theft occurrences, so the feature doesn’t always fire as expected.

To account for this, Android also has a new offline device lock feature that locks the screen when your phone remains offline for prolonged periods of time. A thief might try to disconnect your phone to make it harder for you to track your phone using Find My Device, so this feature is definitely a clever addition.

The last and probably the most important feature is remote lock, which, once enabled, will allow you to remotely lock your lost or stolen phone from another device, such as your laptop, that’s signed in to your Google account.

4

You Can Hide Sensitive Content From Lock Screen Notifications

Notifications that appear on your lock screen can carry important information that you don’t want a passer-by to see, such as OTPs, messages from your bank, and private conversations. But hiding notifications from the lock screen entirely would be too inconvenient as you obviously don’t want to have to unlock your phone every time to see which apps you’ve gotten notifications from.

The solution is to simply hide the content within those notifications, so the lock screen only shows the app icons sending those notifications and not the whole thing. To do this, go to Settings > Notifications > Lock screen notifications, and tap Hide content.

3

Remove Precise Location Permission for Apps That Don’t Need It

A lot of apps on your phone ask for access to your location, but not all of them need your precise location, especially if an approximate one would do just fine.

For instance, weather apps don’t need your exact location just to tell you what the weather is going to be like in your area. News apps can use approximate location to show you stories about your city. Social media apps can help you explore local content without needing your precise location. Dating apps can show you nearby matches without knowing where you live.

To maximize your privacy, you should only grant precise location permission to apps that can’t function without it. Google Maps needs your exact location to help you navigate, food delivery and ride-sharing apps need it to reach your doorstep, and Find My Device needs it so you can track your phone if it’s lost.

To review location permissions, go to Settings > Location > App permissions. Here, review each app and toggle off Use precise location for ones that don’t need it.

2

Only Allow Partial Gallery Access to Apps You Don’t Use Often

Similar to the point above, it doesn’t make sense to give full access to your gallery and all its contents to all apps that ask for it.

If you’re writing a product review on Amazon, the app only needs access to the photos you took of the product you received, and nothing more. But your phone’s file manager app definitely needs full access so it can show you where all your files are and how much storage they are occupying on your device.

To review this, go to Settings > Security and privacy > More privacy settings > Permission manager > Photos and videos. Review each app that has this permission and select Allow limited access as appropriate.

1

Pixel’s Private Space Mimics Samsung’s Secure Folder

Samsung added the Secure Folder app to Galaxy devices in 2017, and it immediately became a fan-favorite feature. Secure Folder is an isolated space on your phone which requires your biometrics or password to unlock, and is protected by the company’s Knox security platform.

You can move sensitive photos, files, and entire apps to Secure Folder to keep them out of sight of prying eyes. Dating apps, payment apps, and investment apps all contain sensitive information best kept locked behind a thick digital vault. Even if your phone gets stolen and the screen was unlocked when the theft occurred, you have the reassurance that stuff inside the Secure Folder won’t be meddled with.

Seeing how important such a feature is for user privacy, other manufacturers followed suit and added their own implementations. On Google Pixel phones, this feature is called Private Space and is present at the bottom of the app drawer. It’s called Second Space on Xiaomi phones, and Private Safe on OnePlus and Oppo phones.

Related

8 Secure Folder Tips Every Samsung Galaxy User Should Know

Do more with your Secure Folder.

You never want to be in a situation where delaying the use of privacy features, which only take a couple of minutes to set up, results in you losing your personal data. Be proactive and set up these features ASAP.