[imgabe]

> iOS sends a lot of data about your phone to Apple, such as your phone number, your unique device identifier, your location and your IMEI number

Oh no! The manufacturer of my phone knows the unique identifier they created and assigned to my phone? Whatever shall I do?

[Accacin]

Seriously? Obviously the problem isn't that they know the IMEI, it's that they now have an IMEI linked to a specific person along with your UDI, location, and phone number.

[imgabe]

Turn off location, buy a secondhand iPhone with a gift card, create an apple account with a throwaway email, move to a cabin in the woods to work on your manifesto. Easy peasy.

[kornhole]

If one did not need to register the device to one's real ID when activating it, this would not be such a big issue. I ditched my Iphone long ago for this reason, and to my knowledge it is still not possible to make an Iphone anonymous unlike other Android or Linux based devices.

[fsflover]

They may know IMEI, since they made the phone. But why do they have to know your phone number and location? How can I avoid that?

[Algent]

They 100% need the phone number for some of the base features like imessage. The location however without the "find my phone" it shouldn't have a reason, I guess it's to allow them to put on the map any apple tags you have in range. I think these tags are opt out but I'm still stuck on how Apple casually sell the biggest semi-passive stalking tool ever made.

[Bud]

You need to read for five minutes about AirTags and how they work, and how Apple addressed any stalking issues already, before casually tossing around accusations like this with vagaries like "I think these tags are opt out" attached to them.

[CharlesW]

> But why do they have to know your phone number and location? How can I avoid that?

By not using a phone, because your carrier knows this information too and also sells this data (Apple does not).

[fsflover]

The topic is about Apple knowing your data, please do not shift goals.

[CharlesW]

Hey fsflover, I'm not sure how answering your question "How can I avoid that?" is moving goalposts. My answer stands — don't use a phone if you don't want your location captured and shared.

It's trivial to turn off Location Services on an iPhone, in which case your location data isn't sent to Apple. You can also control this on an application-by-application basis if you wish. However, this doesn't stop your carrier from capturing and sharing your location data.

Hopefully this clears it up for you.

[fsflover]

>> But why do they have to know your phone number and location? How can I avoid that?

> By not using a phone, because your carrier knows this information too and also sells this data (Apple does not).

What my carrier is doing has nothing to do with the problem at hand, which is Apple collecting unnecessary data on me. Not using a phone is not a (reasonable) solution to Apple invading my privacy. I can use another phone instead, which doesn't do that.

> It's trivial to turn off Location Services on an iPhone

Let me remind you that this thread started with "iOS sends a lot of data about your phone to Apple, such as your phone number, your unique device identifier...". How can I prevent Apple from collecting my phone number? You didn't reply to that, you shifted goals to location tracking of my carrier.

[sbuk]

Correcting an incorrect assertion is not shifting goalposts.

[fsflover]

I don't see where an incorrect assertion was corrected. "They" was about Apple, not someone else.

[qclibre22]

Leave it at home or turn it off.