In the article “4 Questions to Ask Before You Give a New App Access to Your Data“, Rob Pegoraro reminds readers how easy it can be to turn over personal information about you or your friends if you are not careful.   The questions are not really tech-related, but logical questions when you consider these app developers are in business to make a profit and they make that profit from us buying and using their apps.

My rule of thumb when answering an app’s privacy-related questions is to say no and set things up as tight as possible unless I am unable to use a feature that I want to use.  At that point, you have to consider the information that must be given up, how it may be used and whether you are willing to give it up for that feature.  Just remember, you cannot “unring” a bell.  If you allow an app to have access to your contacts it will probably access them immediately and use the information before you have a chance to disallow.  It is better to start off with very tight controls that you can loosen if you choose to later.  As long as the app doesn’t force you to allow something in order to use the app, you can go into the apps privacy settings area  of the device later and loosen the control.  These settings may be in the app itself or under settings on the device.  Since we are on the topic of privacy, location services is certainly another area to be considered.  Here is an apple knowledge base article that explains how locations services works and shows how to make changes to the settings.