How to Set Up Your Android Phone For Ultimate Privacy

It’s not an exaggeration to say that your smartphone is your most personal device. The fact that it’s always with you, however, sure does generate a lot of information about your habits. Your location history, searches, web browsing habits, app usage, and even recordings of your voice talking to the Assistant. Yes, your phone and the services powering it are handy in many tangible ways. And suppose you use a strong password and two-factor authentication. In that case, your information is likely safer on Google’s servers than anywhere else. But it’s not paranoia. Take stock from time to time of just how much you’re handing over. Or if you’d rather not, place all your digital privacy eggs in the same basket. Here are some simple tips about staying in control of all that critical information. And ensuring that privacy isn’t something you have to surrender.

Get Right With It

Since you’re on Android, using an account is essential to buy apps and using the company’s suite of services. Even the privacy-focused Blackphone puts services front and center. Maybe your goal is to do a little de-Googling because you don’t want the company to know everything about you. The first place to start is the My Activity account center. This is essentially the dashboard for every instance where your activity touches servers. The site is entirely mobile-friendly, so you can attack all these details from your phone, tablet, and desktop.

My Activity is the home for everything, and it remembers all about your daily interactions.

The amount of information is a little staggering, especially if this is your first time there. For example, touch Android, and you’ll see a timeline of the interactions from your phone. Such as which apps you’ve used on your phone, tablet, or Android TV. The same goes for Chrome, Search, or Play. There’s also a search function, which is surprisingly a little hit or miss at finding your stuff. The key to this section is that you can also clean things out. Touch the overflow three vertical dots button at the top right. And you’ll have the option to delete details by a specific timeframe. You can also choose the nuclear option of deleting everything if you want a fresh start.

You can delete activity from a specific time period or send everything to the digital trash bin at once.

Use Assistant

The most exciting addition to this section is if you use the Assistant. Which powers the artificial intelligence smarts inside the Pixel, Home, and Allo. Every voice interaction with it is recorded, so you can play it back.

You can play back and also delete your voice interactions with the Assistant.

It’s a little creepy to know your voice recordings are always saved. So you can delete this if you’d like. However, you’re better off acknowledging that this is one of the tradeoffs. We make for having an artificial genie always at your disposal. It remembers this is where the delete activity by button can come in handy. It allows you to delete content from a specific application. Touch Filter by date & product, then select Assistant or any other app you want to seek out. This way, all your voice searches, other searches, or interactions are sent away at once.

You can wipe away your voice commands all at once.

Returning here often to see what’s going on is also an excellent way to ensure your account is secure. Or nothing suspicious has taken place.

Location, Location, Location

So much of how your phone interacts with different apps and services is through your location. Think Maps, search suggestions, Uber, and other services. One area you should check is your location history. This is a detailed timeline of everywhere your Android device has gone. It’s actually useful, as it’s helped me remember where I went on a particular day. However, it’s easy to understand that some may not want this saved for all time. Head to Maps > Your timeline, and you’ll see what it has on you. Your location is saved in an attractive timeline by each day. It even integrates with photos to show which pictures you took by location.

Every move you make is traceable inside of Maps.

You can tame this behavior, however. Head to Settings > Personal > Location. From here, you can see which apps have recently accessed your location. There’s also a switch to turn this off if there are particular apps. You don’t want to be included or are turning into a battery drain.

Find out which apps devices are using Google’s location services.

Keep in mind that shutting off all location-based tracking means no more regional tips from Now. Gift card offers from Android Pay or other location-based alerts. You’re also likely to get fewer Opinion Reward surveys since many come from your location. You can get more specific and turn on or off location services for particular apps. Or devices if you want more control. Phones and tablets that have used your account tend to hang around in this feature for a while. For security, your best bet is to ensure you’ve wiped them properly before resale.

Go Outside the Circle

Along with tightening the reins on your account. You can also opt to go dark with some other app services you use. Like on the desktop, you can browse the web with Chrome in Incognito mode. It’s even easier if you have a Pixel as it’s in one of the app shortcuts. Press and hold the Chrome icon. This doesn’t save any of your searches or web history to your account. However, it doesn’t mean that you’re completely invisible. Your internet service provider and other information are still visible to the server you visit.

There’s a toolset for using Tor on Android for even stronger private browsing. Orbot uses Tor to create a proxy to scramble your Internet traffic. You then use the Tor Browser to surf the web securely. It’s so secure it won’t even let you take a screenshot of the browsing section. More technical users can dive into node configuration, bridges, and relays.

Tor browsing isn’t just for the desktop.

If You Opt Out of Chrome

If you want a more conventional solution, you can always opt out of the Chrome ecosystem by going with Firefox, a different search engine. The best mostly-private option is DuckDuckGo. Not only is it a solid search engine. But none of your search history or other details are saved by the company. On the email front, you can get by with more private alternatives to Gmail. One of the best is Proton Mail. It’s a popular, encrypted email service with servers based in Switzerland. You’re not going to get all the cool tricks like travel itineraries in your Now feed. Still, you can rest assured that your email account is securely hosted.