Android 15's Privacy Features Worth Turning On Today

Each Android release quietly moves more control into the user's hands, and the most useful privacy features are often the ones people never discover. If you are running a recent version of Android, it is worth spending ten minutes in Settings to turn on protections that are off or hidden by default.

Private space for sensitive apps

Private space lets you create a separate, lockable area of your phone for sensitive apps. Apps inside it are hidden from the main launcher and app list until you unlock the space, and they can use a different account. It is a clean way to keep banking, health or messaging apps away from anyone who picks up your unlocked phone.

Granular location and photo permissions

Modern Android lets you grant an app access to your approximate location rather than your precise one, which is plenty for weather or news apps. Similarly, when an app asks for photos, you can share only selected images instead of your entire library. Review these in Settings under privacy and permissions, and downgrade anything that does not need full access.

A quick permission audit

• Open the permission manager and sort by permission type.
• Look at which apps have location, microphone and camera access.
• Revoke anything that surprises you; you can always grant it again when needed.
• Switch location-hungry apps to approximate location where precise is not essential.

Restricted access to the app list

The list of apps installed on your phone is itself sensitive information, and Android has tightened which apps can query it. Combined with private space, this reduces how much one app can learn about the rest of your device.

Turn off ad personalisation and reset your advertising ID

Buried in the privacy settings is the advertising ID, a unique identifier that apps use to build a profile of you across services. You can delete it outright, after which apps receive a string of zeros instead of a stable identifier, and you can switch off the personalised-ads setting entirely. It costs you nothing except slightly less relevant adverts, and it meaningfully cuts how easily your activity is stitched together across different apps.

Watch what runs in the background

Permissions granted while an app is open are one thing; permissions used when it is not are another. The privacy dashboard shows a timeline of which apps accessed the camera, microphone and location, and when. If a game you played this morning is reading your location at midnight, that is worth investigating. Android also shows small on-screen indicators when the microphone or camera is active, so you can catch access you did not expect in the moment.

Keep the basics in place

Privacy features work best on top of good fundamentals. Keep automatic updates on so security patches arrive promptly, use a strong screen lock, and review the privacy dashboard periodically to see which apps accessed sensitive permissions recently.

Good defaults beat constant vigilance

The realistic truth is that few people will audit their permissions every week, which is exactly why the one-time setup matters so much. Turning on the strongest sensible defaults, approximate location, selected-photos access, a reset advertising ID and private space for anything sensitive, means your privacy no longer depends on remembering to check. Configure the phone once so that the safe choice is the automatic one, and the protection quietly persists in the background. That is a far more reliable strategy than promising yourself you will stay watchful, and it is the approach that actually holds up over the months between the moments you think about privacy at all.

The bottom line

Android's privacy tools are genuinely useful, but many stay off until you look for them. Set up private space for your most sensitive apps, prune permissions you never intended to grant, and prefer approximate location. None of it takes long, and all of it puts you back in control.