iOS 18—3 New iPhone Privacy And Security Features Arriving Soon

Apple’s iOS 18 is coming soon—and the iPhone maker has confirmed the headline privacy and security features arriving this Fall. Apple’s iOS 18 is going to be one of the biggest updates for some time, because it includes the first of the iPhone maker’s AI features.

“Apple Intelligence” AI will be backed by security and privacy settings and the iPhone maker’s Private Cloud Compute, the firm announced at its Worldwide Developers conference last week.

Apple’s AI capabilities will be in addition to a bunch of exciting new privacy and security features you’ll be able to try out on your iPhone when iOS 18 arrives. Here are three of the best.

Locked And Hidden Apps In iOS 18

While the iPhone includes multiple privacy and security features already, once someone can access your device, they can also see everything that’s on it. It’s with this in mind that from iOS 18, you will be able to lock apps so they can only be accessed using Face ID or Touch ID, or your passcode when you tap on them.

This means from iOS 18, if you hand your device to someone to look at something or take a photo, they won’t be able to see other apps such as banking and social media.

In addition, Apple is giving you the ability to hide iPhone apps in iOS 18 by moving them to a locked, hidden apps folder that requires Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode to open it.

The iOS 18 Passwords App

One of the best new security features coming in iOS 18, in my opinion, is the passwords app—a step up from the current iCloud Keychain. The new passwords app is more like a traditional password manager such as 1Password, so will work better across platforms. It also includes alerts to show you when you are using a weak password or one that has been leaked in a recent breach.

The new Passwords app will provide “much-needed, simple access” to account passwords and other private information while “balancing good security and functionality,” says Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at ESET.

Moore thinks it “potentially runs the risk of obliterating the competition,” but concedes the iOS 18 password manager “may just be the vital app that makes password management apps the default.”

If it prevents people reusing credentials or using easy to guess passwords, this can only be a win-win for people’s security.

Contacts Permission Improvements In iOS 18

It’s important to be able to control your app permissions, and over the years, Apple has given iPhone users the means to do this. For example, App Tracking Transparency helps you to stop tracking across apps and websites, and you can select Photos that can be used by an app without giving it full library access.

In iOS 18, Apple is expanding this to your contacts, so you can easily control which are shared with an app, helping to boost your privacy – which your contacts will be grateful for too.

Other iOS 18 Security And Privacy Enhancements

Apple’s iOS 18 will also come with an Accessory Setup Kit to allow developers to pair your accessories without letting an app see all the other devices on your network. This capability is “vital yet often overlooked by users,” says Moore. “It’s typically a feature that is not a priority until you are compromised.”

Meanwhile, there will be a refreshed Privacy & Security section in Settings that Apple says will help you more easily understand the level of access each app has, and change this where relevant.

iOS 18 AI Upgrades

Apple’s iOS 18 is the first iPhone software update to include major AI upgrades, which itself raises concerns about security and privacy—especially given its partnership with OpenAI for ChatGPT.

But Apple claims its AI features will be secured and made private by using on-device processing, with more resource heavy requests dealt with in its own private cloud environment, Private Cloud Compute.

There’s no doubt about it, iOS 18 is going to be a game-changing update for your iPhone, and there are plenty of privacy and security features to look forward to. I’ll be following all the updates, so stay tuned for more ahead of the official launch.