Siri can index more of your personal data — here's how to limit it
If you're concerned about Apple's new digital assistant, here's how you can restrict its access to your data.
As mentioned, Apple has left it up to developers to decide if Siri AI can access the data people generate inside of their apps. That means as long as they allow iOS 27's Spotlight tool to index the contents of their apps, Siri AI can in turn access and surface that information for you as a user. However, you still have control over the process, and can ultimately decide to restrict Siri from accessing your apps. To do so, follow these steps:
Select the app you want to restrict Siri from accessing.
After you disable Show Content in Search in relation to a particular app, Siri won't pull information from that app, even if you ask it to do so directly. For example, if you disable indexing of Messages, and ask Siri to summarize a series of messages from your friend, the digital assistant will tell you it can't find those messages.
In the Apps settings menu, you may have noticed a collection of options grouped under "Apple Intelligence & Siri." For the purposes of this guide, you can leave those alone; they don't have privacy implications. Instead, they primarily control where iOS might suggest an app for you. For instance, if you disable the "Suggest App" option, you won't see that specific app among the "Siri Suggestions" iOS generates when you access your iPhone's search shade. The "Learn from this App" option sounds nefarious, but it merely allows iOS to see how and when you're using your apps so that it can tailor when it surfaces those apps for you.
