iPhone: Hide Lock Screen Previews. #iPhone #LockScreen #NotificationPrivacy

Our Take

Mading Thok's tip is solid and worth thirty seconds of your time: go hide those lock screen previews so the stranger next to you on the bus can't read your texts. It's the kind of small, personal privacy hygiene everyone should practice, and we're glad creators are putting it in front of casual viewers who might never think about it otherwise.

But here's the thing we can't stop thinking about: locking down your notification previews protects you from a nosy stranger glancing at your phone for five seconds. It does nothing about the automated license plate readers quietly logging your car's location, direction, and timestamp every time you drive past one, then feeding that data into a searchable database that cops, private companies, and sometimes total strangers can query. One is a screen you control. The other is a camera on a pole you never agreed to.

Personal device hygiene matters, but it can't be the whole strategy. Check our camera map to see what's watching your routes, and if you want to push back on the bigger surveillance picture, our take-action page has real steps you can take beyond your Settings app.