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Data is capital for big tech firms. Their aim is to gather as much information about you as they can, and to do as much as we can, there is no surefire way to completely shut them out. There are steps you can take to restrict your exposure of advertisers. All starts with your settings on Facebook.

Tech companies, like smartphone manufacturers, respond slowly as consumers demand more privacy. The latest iPhone operating system from Apple, iOS 13, has several new privacy features that you need to start using if you're not already there.

The OS also brings hundreds of other changes, such as enhanced camera settings and a faster way of typing messages. Tap or click on 9 features of your iPhone that you will use over and over again. It's time to check how often companies track you and get data from your Apple devices once your phone is up-to-date. With these new privacy features, keep tech companies and hackers at bay.

Many apps are asking for permission to know where you are. This makes sense in applications like Google Maps, but social media apps and games also want to know where you are. There's less justification for those.

Sure, if you're in a cool new spot, you might want to share your location on social media, and use geotags on Snapchat is fun too. Yet sharing your position online can be truly dangerous- anyone can find you. Savvy hackers use location information to deduce specifics such as your username, where you are working, and even when you are going to be back.

Luckily, Apple knows how quickly information can be collected by criminals, so you now have some significant control over which location data you share with various apps in iOS 13. Apple has always made it possible for certain apps to disable location services, but the controls are now more precise and customizable.

Once you have downloaded iOS 13, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services to control your app location permissions. You will see a list of your devices there, and you can determine how often the location services are used. This control level will help to keep your data safe, so make sure that you are using this ASAP feature.

Even if you check your location services when and where they are accessed, some apps may be sneaky. To glean just a little bit of data, they will access your location in the background every so often. The amount of learbed information adds up over time, but with iOS 13, you can now know when an app tries to sneak around.

First, iOS 13 allows you to choose Bluetooth permissions for every application you use. You can access this by going to Settings > Privacy > Bluetooth, as with location services. Once again, a list of your apps will be presented, and you can decide whether they can access your Bluetooth.

Next, iOS 13 helps you to control the way your iPhone operates over Wi-Fi. Tracking in Safari can be removed, so data collected about you on one page cannot be moved to another site. This makes it more and more difficult for advertisers to send you the same ads, as they have less data to work with. Just go to Settings > Safari and turn off Prevent Cross-Site Tracking.