The Android Privacy Settings Worth Changing This Weekend
Android has accumulated a genuinely strong set of privacy controls over its past few releases, then buried most of them three menus deep where few people ever look. Two phones running the same version can therefore have completely different privacy postures, depending entirely on whether anyone opened Settings. The changes below fix the defaults that matter most, and the whole list fits comfortably into a weekend afternoon. Menu paths refer to stock Android 13 and later; Samsung, Xiaomi and OnePlus rearrange things, but typing a setting's name into the search bar at the top of Settings finds it on any recent phone.
See what your apps actually did this week
Begin with the Privacy Dashboard, under Settings > Security & privacy > Privacy > Privacy dashboard. It shows a timeline of every camera, microphone and location access from the past 24 hours, broken down by app and by minute. Treat it as diagnosis rather than treatment: you are looking for surprises. A navigation app such as Google Maps polling your location during a drive is expected behaviour. A casual game checking it overnight is not, and tapping any entry jumps straight to that app's permission screen so you can revoke access on the spot.
Audit the big three permissions
The dashboard covers one day; the permission manager covers everything. Open Settings > Security & privacy > Privacy > Permission manager and work through Camera, Microphone and Location in turn. Each screen sorts apps by grant level, which makes the audit fast. Two rules settle most cases: no app should hold "Allowed all the time" for location unless it does real background work, and anything you do not remember installing gets denied first and investigated later. For what the remaining permission groups actually unlock, our permissions guide goes through them one by one.
Delete the advertising ID
Every Android device carries a resettable identifier that ad networks use to stitch your activity together across unrelated apps. Since Android 13 you can remove it outright: Settings > Security & privacy > Privacy > Ads > Delete advertising ID. Ads keep appearing afterwards, but they arrive without the cross-app profile behind them. Apps whose business is that profile, Instagram among them, are where you will notice the change first. On Android 12 and earlier the same screen offers a reset instead, which is weaker but still worth doing periodically.
Trim what your Google account remembers
Device settings govern only the phone; your Google account keeps its own records, and two of them matter most. At myadcenter.google.com you can switch off personalised ads across Google services, or delete individual interest categories Google has inferred about you. Separately, Web & App Activity, found under Settings > Google > Manage your Google Account > Data & privacy, logs your searches and app usage. If turning it off entirely costs more Assistant convenience than you want to lose, set auto-delete to the shortest option, three months, and let the history erase itself on schedule.
Hand out approximate location, not precise
Since Android 12, the location permission comes in two grades, and apps only get street-level precision if you grant it. Open Settings > Location > App location permissions, pick an app, and switch off "Use precise location". Weather, news and shopping apps work exactly as well knowing your neighbourhood as your doorstep; the roughly kilometre-scale accuracy of approximate mode is all they need. Reserve precision for navigation and ride-hailing, where it is the entire point.
Four smaller switches
- Clipboard alerts: Settings > Security & privacy > Privacy > "Show clipboard access" makes Android flash a banner whenever an app reads something you copied elsewhere. Passwords and one-time codes pass through the clipboard constantly, so leave this on.
- Lock screen previews: Settings > Notifications > Notifications on lock screen lets you hide sensitive content, keeping message text and login codes off a screen anyone can read.
- Play Protect: in the Play Store, tap your profile icon, then Play Protect, and confirm scanning is enabled; run a manual scan while you are there.
- Auto-revoke: the "Pause app activity if unused" toggle on each app's settings page withdraws permissions from apps left untouched for a few months. It is on by default for most modern apps, but older ones can opt out, so spot-check the ones you keep around "just in case".
Done by Sunday evening
None of these changes breaks anything you will miss, and only the Google account items take more than a minute apiece. The sensible rhythm is to run the full list once, then revisit the Privacy Dashboard for ten minutes after each major Android update, because new releases keep adding controls that, as ever, nobody will switch on for you.