There’s a catchy saying that offers an important lesson about our personal technology: The devil is in the default settings.

The term refers to factory settings that tech companies implement deep into the devices, apps, and websites we use. Typically, this setting forces us to share data about our activities and location. Normally, we could opt out of this data collection, but companies design menus and buttons to be hard to see, perhaps in the hope that we won’t change them right away.

usually Apple, Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft want us to leave factory settings on to train their algorithms and find software bugs that make their products easier for us to use. However, sharing unnecessary data is not always in our best interest.

Consider how several whistleblowers in 2018 admitted to listening to Apple Siri recordings and Amazon Alexa activations that inadvertently recorded couples having sex. The recent reversal of Roe v. Wade also highlights the many ways women can be tracked through their personal technology while seeking options to terminate a pregnancy.

So with every technology product we use, it’s important to take the time to carefully study the various menus, buttons, and switches to minimize the data we share. Here’s a simple guide to the many default settings that I and other tech writers are always tweaking.

Apple mobile phones

On iPhones, users can open the Settings app and access the privacy menu to change how their app usage and location data is shared. (Technically, Apple asks people if they want to accept these settings when they activate a new iPhone, but these steps can easily be skipped. These tips will disable data sharing.)

— Select Tracking and disable request tracking. It tells all apps not to share data with third parties for marketing purposes.

— Select Apple Advertising and turn off personalized ads so Apple can’t use information about you to send targeted ads to its App Store, Apple News, and Stock.

— Select Analytics and turn off Sharing iPhone Analytics to prevent your phone from sending device data to Apple to improve its products.

— Select Location Services, tap System Services, and turn off iPhone Analytics and Route & Traffic to prevent the device from sharing geolocation data with Apple to improve Apple Maps.

Google products

Google products, including Android phones and web services such as Google Search, YouTube and Google Maps, are linked to Google accounts, and the control panel to change data management is on the myactivity website. Google com.

— For all three activities (web and app activity, location history, and YouTube history), select Auto-delete to delete activity older than three months. This way, instead of creating a permanent record of every search, Google purges records older than ninety days. In the short term, you can still make useful recommendations based on recent searches.

— An additional tip for Android phones from Ryne Hager, editor of the Android Police tech blog: Newer versions of Android allow people to share their approximate location rather than their exact location through apps. For many applications, such as weather software, sharing proximity data should be sufficient, while geolocation data should be shared exclusively with software that needs it to function properly, such as mapping applications.

Meta’s Facebook page

The most important meta settings can be accessed through the privacy check tool in the settings menu. Here are some important tweaks to avoid employee and marketing interference:

— “Who can see what you share”, select “Only me” for people who have access to your friends list and the pages you follow, and select “Friends” for those who can see your birthday.

— “How can people find you on Facebook”, select “Only me” for people who can find you by email or phone number.

— Turn off Relationship Status, Employment, Position, and Education options for “Your Facebook Ad Preferences.” That way, marketers can’t send targeted ads based on this information.

Windows from Microsoft

Windows computers come with a number of data sharing settings turned on at the factory that help Microsoft, advertisers, and websites learn more about us. You can find the toggles to turn off these settings by opening the Settings menu and clicking Privacy & Security and then General.

However, Windows’ worst default setting has nothing to do with privacy. When Kimber Streams, who edits at Wirecutter, checks out new laptops, one of her first steps is to open the sound menu and select No Sounds to silence the many annoying chimes that play when something goes wrong with Windows.

Amazon Site and Devices

Amazon offers some control over how information is shared through its website and products like Alexa and Nest cameras. There are two settings that I recommend turning off:

— Last year, Amazon launched Amazon Sidewalk, a program that allows new Amazon products to automatically share an Internet connection with other nearby devices. Critics say Sidewalk could open the door for malicious people to gain access to people’s data. To turn the Echo into a smart speaker, open the Amazon Alexa app and tap More in the lower-right corner of the screen. Under Settings, tap Account Settings, select Amazon Sidewalk, and toggle the switch to the off position.

For the Ring camera, in the Ring app, tap the icon with three lines at the top left and tap Control Center, then tap Amazon Sidewalk and slide the switch to the off position.

— On Amazon’s website, some shopping lists (such as items saved on wish lists) are shared with the public by default, which may constitute disclosure of information. Visit your lists page and make each shopping list private.

© New York Times 2022