The Tracking Prompt
Apple introduced a major privacy feature called App Tracking Transparency. By default, every time you download a brand-new application from the App Store and open it for the first time, iOS throws a massive pop-up onto the screen: “Allow this app to track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites?” You are forced to tap either “Ask App Not to Track” or “Allow” before you can actually use the software. While this is fantastic for highlighting corporate surveillance, answering this pop-up every single time you download an app becomes tedious. If your answer is always going to be a hard “No,” you can permanently silence the prompt and force iOS to automatically block all tracking requests on your behalf.
How to Turn Off “Ask to Track”
You can set a global denial policy deep within the iPhone’s privacy settings.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Scroll down the main list and tap on Privacy & Security.
- Near the top of the screen, tap on Tracking.
- You will see a master toggle switch labeled “Allow Apps to Request to Track.”
- Toggle this switch to the Off position (the green background will disappear).
The Global Denial
If you already had some apps installed where you previously tapped “Allow,” a prompt will immediately ask if you want to revoke tracking for those specific apps as well. Choose “Ask Apps to Stop Tracking.”
The change is absolute. From this moment on, you will never see the tracking pop-up again. Whenever a newly downloaded app attempts to ask for your advertising ID, iOS will silently intercept the request in the background, automatically deny it, and feed the app a blank identifier, keeping your data safe without interrupting your screen.