How Apple’s New Privacy Feature Stops Spam Emails

Apple has released some new privacy and security features in its latest iOS 13 update. If you have an iPhone, iPad or other Apple device, there’s one new component that excites even money expert — and Android enthusiast — Clark Howard: It’s called Hide My Email.

New iOS Privacy Feature Prevents Email Spam

The new Hide My Email feature, under Sign in with Apple, lets you choose to share or hide your email address with apps on your phone. “You can also choose to have Apple create a unique email address for you that forwards to your real address,” according to the Apple iOS 13 site.

“Apple does it automatically for you so that when you sign up with a company, you use a burner email address and that way, if a company starts spamming you repeatedly, it’s not infiltrating your main email,” Clark says.

In apps that support Sign in with Apple, you will see a prompt that gives you several options:

If you select Hide your email, it generates a fake email address that you can access anytime to read your messages.

Clark is a big fan of Sign in with Apple and here’s why:

“If you decide not to do business with a company anymore then basically [the email goes to a dead end] when they try to spam you,” he says. “I think that’s really a great thing.”

That’s pretty high praise from an Android fan! But Clark does have one warning about iOS 13 and it’s a valuable one…

Why Clark Says You Might Want to Hold Off on iOS 13

If you haven’t downloaded iOS 13, yet, Clark recommends that you wait a while. Apple’s initial iOS releases are notorious for glitches and bugs — and this one is no different.

One issue that I have personally experienced with iOS 13 is that my phone randomly sends photos to people in my contacts. Talk about embarrassing!

If your device is set to automatically download new updates, you might want to change that setting. Here’s how to do it:

Go to Settings > General > Software Update and see if Automatic Updates is enabled.

Here Are 3 More Security Features of iOS 13

Fake email addresses aren’t the only cool thing about iOS 13. Here are some other privacy and security features you should know about…

1. Silence Unknown Callers

You can now silence unknown callers with the touch of a button. To enable this feature:

Go to Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers and any such calls will be sent to voicemail automatically.

2. Turn Off Location Data in Photos

Now you can turn off location data encrypted in photos. Here’s how to do that:

Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Camera. You’ll have the option to select between the following:

• Never
• Ask Next Time
• While Using the App

3. Erase Your Data

In the unfortunate event that someone steals your phone, you can enable a security protection to prevent them from accessing your information. It will wipe your phone clean so that no sensitive data can be exposed. Here’s how to enable it:

Go to Settings > Touch ID & Passcode (Face ID & Passcode on newer models), enter your passcode, and scroll down until you see Erase Data.

While privacy updates are great, the new features from Apple are only as good as your cell phone coverage. See the best cell phone plans here.

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