It’s a stomach-dropping scenario: Your phone gets stolen, and all your information is gone along with it. If that hasn’t happened to you already, it may never, thanks to Apple’s newest iOS update. The company is making it a lot more difficult for thieves to gain access to your most private information. A new feature called Stolen Device Protection is rolling out now as an over-the-air software update in iOS 17.3, and you should turn it on right away.
After you install iOS 17.3, it should prompt you to turn on Stolen Device Protection. But if you miss that opportunity, just open the Settings app, tap Face ID & Protection, and then make sure the Stolen Device Protection toggle is on. (If you have an older iPhone with Touch ID, your settings will look different.)
After you enable Stolen Device Protection, your iPhone will require additional authentication for the user to access some information, and it will also prevent certain changes if it detects that it isn’t at a trusted location such as your house or your workplace.
For example, Stolen Device Protection adds a one-hour delay for changing your Apple account password or your phone’s passcode if it isn’t at one of those locations. Even if a thief knows the passcode to unlock your iPhone, that delay gives you time to use Apple’s Find My tool to remotely lock or wipe the stolen device. Without the delay, a thief could deactivate the anti-theft and security features using only your iPhone’s passcode.
Stolen Device Protection also limits what information a thief can access on your iPhone by requiring biometric authentication (Face ID or Touch ID, depending on which iPhone you have) to do things like view saved passwords or make changes to an Apple savings account. This prevents thieves from using your unlocked iPhone to steal your money or open an Apple credit card in your name.
The changes may in part be a response to reports of thieves snatching devices after observing iPhone owners logging in with their PIN. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, iPhone thieves are often able to steal money, open credit card accounts, and more once they access the devices. And thieves can completely lock victims out of their Apple accounts, making it very difficult for the victims to disable or track their stolen iPhones with Apple’s Find My feature. Victims are sometimes unable to access their photos and files saved on iCloud as well.
This new feature makes it harder for thieves to use a stolen iPhone to ruin your life. It might pose an inconvenience for you in some moments, but it’s still worth switching on.
It won’t work at home, though
One caveat is that Stolen Device Protection applies these enhanced security features only when the iPhone is turned on and your iPhone is away from a “familiar location,” which Apple defines as “your home, work, and certain other locations where you regularly use your iPhone.” (You can view those locations and make changes to them under Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > System Services > Significant Locations.) When your iPhone is safe at home, you won’t encounter these additional security measures. That’s good for convenience, but it also means that if someone in your home knows your passcode, these security measures won’t apply.
Other tips to protect your iPhone
You can take a few other steps to make your iPhone more secure:
Make your passcode longer. If you have only a four-digit pin to unlock your device, change it to a six-digit one or even an alphanumeric passcode.
Protect sensitive photos that contain personal information. Delete photos in your camera roll that show important documents, which can help thieves find more personal information about you. If you need quick access to them for some reason, you can instead move them to the Photos app’s hidden album by long-pressing a photo and then selecting Hide This Photo. From the Photos section of Settings, you can change whether the hidden album is visible at all, and you can require the use of Face ID to open the hidden album. You can also store photos of documents in a secure online cloud storage service or a password manager. Wherever you put the images, make sure that some kind of authentication—a passcode, Face ID, or the like—is required to view them.
Protect individual apps with a PIN or Face ID. Most apps on iPhones don’t often (or ever) require you to log back in; as a result, a thief with an unlocked iPhone can easily access all of your apps. Some apps, especially those related to credit cards and banking, allow you to set an individual PIN or use your face or fingerprint to unlock them. Be sure to switch these settings on.
Require Face ID or Touch ID to view saved passwords. Stolen Device Protection requires biometric authentication to use or view your saved passwords or to have the iPhone autofill those logins when you navigate to a site. But you can require that even without Stolen Device Protection: Go to Settings, tap Face ID & Passcode, and toggle on the Password AutoFill option. You can also use a standalone password manager such as our top pick, 1Password, which has many features that built-in password managers can’t match.
Enable Find My on your iPhone. If your iPhone is stolen, you can use the Find My app to track it down and disable it remotely. Take some time to try this tool out before you need it in an emergency.