Apple Intelligence analyzes how you use your financial apps. Here's how you can stop this
With the release of iOS 18.1 last month, the first batch of features from Apple's AI initiative, Apple Intelligence, became available to those with certain iPhone models. Those phones include the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and all four iPhone 16 models. Next month, iOS 18.2 will bring a second batch of Apple Intelligence features including the Image Playground, Siri's integration with ChatGPT, and Genmoji.
While some of the Apple Intelligence features are useful such as the ability to summarize websites and emails, and the writing tools feature that allows ChatGPT to write an email or message in a particular style that you request, there seems to be a privacy issue that could lead an attacker to access your financial accounts and wipe them out. Chip Hallett, author of The Ultimate Privacy Playbook says that Apple Intelligence learns how iPhone users use their banking and financial apps.
Hallett says that there is a way to prevent Apple Intelligence from analyzing sensitive information about your financial and banking apps stored on your iPhone. Go to Settings > Apps and scroll to the name of your banking app. Let's say you bank at Wells Fargo. Go to Wells Fargo and tap on the listing. A menu will open and one of the options will be Apple Intelligence & Siri. Tap on the small right arrow next to where it says Apple Intelligence & Siri. That takes you to another menu.
How to cut off Apple Intelligence from accessing your financial apps. | Image credit-PhoneArena
From this menu, you can eliminate Apple Intelligence's ability to access this banking app by toggling off "Learn from this App," "Suggest App," and "Suggestion Notifications." These three are toggled on by default. After you toggle these off, the app is cut off from Apple Intelligence.
Follow the same procedure for all of the banking and financial apps installed on your iPhone. Afterward you can feel some relief in knowing that Apple Intelligence isn't analyzing how you use these apps which could lead to an attacker figuring out how to access them. Other security experts suggest that you do the same to your health and fitness apps to make sure that Apple Intelligence isn't accessing personal information.
Keep in mind that while Apple says that users' data is not stored, a support page notes that Apple Intelligence "identifies the data necessary to provide to a generative model to best assist you." If you don't believe that this should include your banking and financial information, or even your health and fitness metrics, follow the aforementioned directions to stop Apple Intelligence from snooping where you don't think it belongs.
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