This brings us to the question: What is App Tracking Transparency? And how can we switch it on or off on our iPhones?
What Is App Tracking Transparency?
Before iOS 14.5, the apps on your phone could automatically trace your activities. Even when you were not using them, certain apps could track your location or keep an eye on what you were browsing to generate targeted ads.
App Tracking Transparency is a feature that gives you the choice to stop this from happening. If you turn this feature off for a particular app, that app consequentially cannot track any activity you perform on your phone.
Apple has taken this step to ensure that its users have complete control over their privacy and safety.
How Can You Switch It Off?
Since this feature is only available with iOS 14.5, make sure your device is updated before you begin.
Here’s what happens after your update is complete: Every time you open an app, you will see a popup asking whether you want to allow the particular app to “track your activity across other companies, apps, and websites.”
You can either choose Allow or Ask App Not to Track. Choosing the latter will block tracking activity for the app. The same will happen every time you download and open a new app.
If you want the same settings to be applied across all your apps at once, you can do so in the Settings by following these steps:
Go to Settings and tap on Privacy. Tap Tracking. You will then see an option to Allow Apps to Request to Track. Turning the toggle off will ensure that your apps do not show you tracking requests when you open them. The apps are automatically blocked from tracking your activity.
If you have questions and want to know more about this feature, you can tap on Learn More beneath the Allow Apps to Request to Track option.
How Can You Switch App Tracking On?
When the popup asking to “track your activity across other companies, apps and websites” appears, choose Allow.
If you previously blocked an app from tracking you but have now changed your mind, you can turn on the tracking feature in Settings > Privacy > Tracking.
A list of apps that have requested tracking permission appears on this page. By turning the toggles on, you can manually select which apps can track your activity and which ones can’t.
If you don’t see an app, make sure the toggle for requesting access is on and re-install the app so the popup can reappear.
What to Do If App Tracking Transparency Is Grayed Out?
Apple has released a support document to aid you with this problem, and it includes three conditions in which App Tracking Transparency might be grayed out:
You made your Apple ID in the last three days. Ownership of the account belongs to someone below 18 years of age. Your profile is configured to stop tracking.
However, numerous people have reported that the App Tracking Transparency feature was grayed out, despite not falling under any of the aforementioned categories. Most of the complaints were resolved after updating to iOS 14.5.1, so make sure to update if you haven’t done so already.
Another method that has worked for some users is signing into their Apple ID again. Sign out of your Apple ID in the App Store, reboot your iPhone, open the App Store, and enter your username and password once again to sign in to your Apple ID.
You can also head over to your Settings and tap your name at the top to do so.
If this doesn’t work for you, there have also been rumors about a correlation between the Personalized Ads settings and App Tracking Transparency. To test out this fix, here’s what you need to do:
Go to Settings and then Privacy. Scroll down and tap on Apple Advertising. Turn the toggle on for Personalized Ads.
Keeping Personalized Ads disabled disallows any targeted ads from coming your way, which could potentially have resulted in the App Tracking Transparency feature being grayed out by default.
The Pros and Cons of App Tracking Transparency
Most of you may feel uncomfortable knowing that apps on your Apple device can track your location, activities, and contacts through your iPhone.
On top of that, we’ve all had the ultimate alarming moment when browsing through a particular item on one app has lead to a constant stream of ads for similar products on other apps.
If you’re one of the many people disturbed by this, make sure you have blocked these apps from tracking you by following the steps listed above.
However, there are some circumstances where someone may find it helpful to let apps track you. Most of the time, this is due to the appearance of targeted ads.
Finding something useful and suited to your needs is a lot easier when apps can record what you’re browsing through and generate similar ads. If you heavily rely on this, you might want to allow some apps to track you.
Entities that produce a large portion of their revenue based on collecting IDFA (ID For Advertisers) to create personalized ads come off worse if a large amount of the population chooses to block tracking activity.
App Tracking Transparency: A Big Step Towards Basic Privacy
The release of this feature has given great comfort to many Apple users but has caused the onset of severe backlash from many companies relying on IDFA.
Turning it on or off is a simple process and can be done at any time. Apple has further ensured that no app can carry on secretly tracking you even after being asked not to, so you have nothing to worry about.
While the release of this feature was a huge change, it wasn’t the only one brought about in iOS 14.5.
