We don’t recommend disabling it for a network unless you need to do so (or are troubleshooting a problem.) The “Private Address” option is controlled separately for each Wi-Fi network. How to Disable Private Addresses for a Wi-Fi Network If you’re ever having trouble connecting to or accessing the internet on a Wi-Fi network, disabling this option is a fine troubleshooting step that will resolve your problem in some situations. At home, you might have set up parental controls for each device on your Wi-Fi network-a feature that uses MAC addresses to identify and apply restrictions to devices. Your organization might ask you to disable private Wi-Fi addresses in this situation. This option is enabled by default and will “just work.” In some cases, it will cause problems with certain networks.įor example, someone might have set up a Wi-Fi network to use MAC address filtering, only allowing certain devices to connect. Most of the time, you won’t notice a problem with private WI-Fi addresses.
Your Wi-Fi sessions from different Wi-Fi networks can’t be so easily linked to each other anymore. Each Wi-Fi network you connect to receives a different own MAC address from your device. With private Wi-Fi addresses, the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch will now provide a different MAC address for each Wi-Fi network they connect to.
It’s easy to see how this feature could lead to tracking: If you move around a city connecting to different public Wi-Fi access points in coffee shops, airports, and libraries, your device would use the same MAC address to connect to each, enabling an organization operating the Wi-Fi hotspots to track your location movements and network activity over time. You could change your MAC address manually on some devices, but few people did. Every network you connect to received the same MAC address from your device. Traditionally, the MAC address was set at the hardware level and was the same for the lifetime of the device. This identifies the device to the network. When an iPhone, iPad, or any other WI-Fi enabled device connects to a Wi-Fi network, it sends a unique media access control (MAC) address.
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