{"id":949954,"date":"2026-10-28T23:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T23:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/949954\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T23:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T23:40:16","slug":"victory-you-can-now-exclude-apps-from-siri-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/949954\/","title":{"rendered":"Victory! You Can Now Exclude Apps from Siri AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the most recent update to Apple\u2019s devices, iOS 27.2, the company has introduced a new setting to \u201cExclude Apps\u201d from Siri AI, fulfilling one of our asks from our Encrypt It Already campaign earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of our main concerns with new AI features on devices is how those features interact with end-to-end encrypted content, particularly with secure messaging apps. Many AI features require cloud processing, and despite privacy protections engineered into these systems<\/a>, the content of secure messaging apps may leave a user\u2019s device without their knowledge. That changes the privacy concerns around using those tools. In a perfect world, users would be able to put a barrier up to ensure data from certain apps doesn\u2019t leave the device. Here was our initial ask:<\/p>\n

You should be able to tell the operating system\u2019s AI to not access an app, even if that comes at the \u201ccost\u201d of missing out on some features. The setting should be straightforward and easy to understand in ways the Gemini and Apple Intelligence controls currently are not.<\/p>\n

At launch, we found the settings to control Siri AI\u2019s app access behavior pretty confusing<\/a>. You had to toggle several options to block Siri AI off from accessing an app, or disable Siri AI entirely. Turning off Siri AI and reverting to Siri Classic<\/a> is, for now, still a good option if you\u2019d prefer to use the older version.<\/p>\n

The most recent update is far more clear and does more to protect your data. And, just as expected, it comes at the cost of some features. That\u2019s a good thing, actually. The features not working shows that the new setting is effective.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how to add apps to the exclusion list, once you\u2019ve updated to 27.2:<\/p>\n

Open Settings > Siri > Excluded Apps
\nTap \u201cAdd Apps\u201d and select any apps you\u2019d like to add to the exclusion list<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Now Siri AI cannot access the contents of the app. Excluding an app also means you may lose some features. For example, if you exclude the Apple Messages app, you will no longer be able to have Siri AI read or respond to messages for you. Even the \u201conscreen awareness\u201d feature, where you invoke Siri and ask it for information about what you\u2019re currently looking at, will not work anymore. For example, if you exclude Signal, you cannot invoke Siri and ask it to discern any information in the Signal app. You\u2019ll just get these messages:<\/p>\n

\"screenshot<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the State of This on Android?<\/p>\n

This update from Apple is also a good excuse to check in on the process on Android. It has improved a little, but is not as straightforward<\/a> as Apple\u2019s new settings, and lacks the ability to set the screen context feature per-app. But you do have some control over what Gemini can access:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Open up the Gemini app
\nTap your user photo, then Settings > Personal Intelligence > Connected Apps
\nRevoke access to any apps you do not want Gemini to have access to<\/p>\n

This process seems to work well enough for some data and we like that it\u2019s opt in, but it\u2019s not exactly intuitive. For example, Signal doesn\u2019t appear there because Signal doesn\u2019t support Gemini\u2019s app access feature at all. That means Gemini can\u2019t access the content of Signal directly, which is good.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Gemini can read notifications if you\u2019ve enabled the \u201cDevice Assistance<\/a>\u201d Connected App (which you likely have, since that also enables basic features, like setting a timer\u2014check under Settings > Personal Intelligence > Connected Apps), and it can use screen context unless you\u2019ve disabled the Device controls > Screen context > \u201cUse screen and app data\u201d option in the Gemini Settings. These two features may access the contents of the Signal app or notifications, if you choose to use them. We\u2019d prefer a more hard-lined approach that reduces the chances of user error here: Google should give users the ability to turn these features off per app.<\/p>\n

Apple clearly understands that some users want stronger controls over what Siri AI can and cannot access. But we think they should go further and offer the option to only use \u201con device\u201d AI features, similar to what Samsung offered with its Galaxy AI<\/a>. We\u2019re happy to see this change and think all operating systems need to consider similar controls moving forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the most recent update to Apple\u2019s devices, iOS 27.2, the company has introduced a new setting to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":949955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-949954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}