Our devices track so many things we do (like for example, your VPN might be leaking your entire browsing history). Sometimes it’s helpful, but other times, especially on Samsung devices, this tracking primarily is intended to help better customize the ads and content we see on our devices.
I’ve identified four features on Samsung devices that are sending way too much data to Samsung and third parties that you can disable with minimal downside while gaining privacy and possibly even making your device a bit faster so that it’s not doing so much data sending in the background.
Delete your Advertising ID
Stop your personal data from being “the product”
The Advertising ID is the identifier your phone builds on your usage patterns that acts as the connection layer for the ad-tracking economy that ad-supported apps tap into in order to serve you the most relevant ads possible. This file has no identifying data (meaning, if Spotify is using this data to serve me ads in the Spotify app, it has no idea that it’s using Brandon Miniman’s data).
What data is collected in this ID? A lot. It collects: which apps you have installed and how often you use each app, it tracks ad views and ad clicks across every ad-supported app, it knows your device model and manufacturer, it knows your general location, it knows the patterns of when you use your phone, and more.
To delete your Advertising ID, go to Settings > Security and Privacy > More Privacy Settings > Ads > Delete ID.
Should you reset or delete your Advertising ID? You have two options here. Resetting issues you a brand-new random ID, which forces ad networks to start rebuilding a profile from scratch — but the ID itself sticks around, and a new profile will start accumulating right away. Deleting is the stronger move: apps querying your ID get back a string of zeros instead, and there’s no profile to build against because there’s no ID to tie it to.
If you choose to reset, I’d do it every 30–90 days to keep profiles from getting too detailed. If you choose to delete, you only need to do it once — it stays deleted until you decide to generate a new one. Personally, I deleted mine and haven’t looked back.
Downsides: deleting your advertising ID means that ads you see in free apps will be less personalized (which is a good thing, I think, because do you really need ads for anti-itch cream to follow you around from app to app, just because you searched for that on your phone?) In addition, some apps might bother you about reactivating personalized ads.
Stop sending Diagnostic Data
Continuously sends info to Samsung
Samsung is using data about your hardware health, usage patterns and app crash logs to continuously send data back to Samsung. This uses background processes in order for the device to “phone home” to continuously send data to Samsung. You don’t need that. To turn this off, go to Settings > Security and Privacy > More Privacy Settings > Send Diagnostic Data > Off.
Downsides: turning this off has almost no downside, unless you file a bug with Samsung Members and the support team might have access to automatic crash logs so you’d have to manually recreate the issue in order to troubleshoot.
Turn off Customization Service
Stop sending Samsung your data
This is Samsung’s in-house behavorial profiling engine that builds a profile of you based on app usage, calendar events, location, search history, data on calls and contacts, and even photo metadata. The service is building a profile of you that is being used to customize Samsung services (like app recommendations in the Galaxy Store, content suggestions in Samsung News, plus it also influences content in other Samsung apps like weather, Wallet, SmartThings, and more). Samsung’s privacy policy even allows your data to be shared with some third parties, which is scary.
To turn this off, go to Settings > tap Samsung Account at the top > Security and Privacy > Customization Service > Off.
Downsides: recommendations within Samsung apps might get more generic, and apps like Samsung News, SmartThings and other Samsung apps will offer less customized suggestions. After several days of keeping this off, I noticed no strange downsides.
Disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Scanning
Will use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth even when you turn it off
There are so many ways bad actors can exploit your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth without your knowledge, which is why you might opt to turn these radios off if you’re not actively using them (though if you’re using public Wi-Fi, there are step you can take to stay secure – and for Bluetooth, your phone is broadcasting more than you think).
Did you know your phone is still scanning for Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth devices in the background, even when both are toggled off without you knowing? I don’t know about you, but if my Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are off, I want it to stay that way.
To fix this, go to Settings > Location > Location Services > turn off Wi-Fi scanning and Bluetooth scanning.
Downsides: I found that turning off these location service features made my GPS tracking slightly less precise, but I didn’t notice any downsides while using location-based services like Uber or Google Maps.
Samsung doesn’t need so much data
Stop the flow of your info back to Samsung
Our devices have gotten really good at personalizing software to better meet our needs. But that comes at an expense, with so much of our info and data being beamed “back home” to Samsung (and other manufacturers are guilty of this as well, of course), which is mostly unnecessary. By making these changes, your Samsung device will track you a lot less.
- SoC
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Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
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6.3-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2x