iOS 15 App Privacy Report: Tracking Domain Contacts

Apple introduced the App Privacy Report in iOS 15 to give users direct visibility into how installed applications interact with private data and communicate over the internet. This article outlines how the report records and organizes domain contact history under the App Network Activity section, what specific network data is captured for each application, and how users can navigate and interpret these logs to identify background data transmission and third-party tracking.

Enabling and Accessing the Report

The App Privacy Report is turned off by default. To start collecting network activity, users must navigate to Settings > Privacy > App Privacy Report (or Privacy & Security on newer updates) and select Turn on App Privacy Report. Once activated, the operating system begins logging network transactions across all installed apps over a rolling seven-day window.

App Network Activity Breakdown

Under the "App Network Activity" heading, iOS displays a list of apps that have established network connections during the monitoring period. Selecting any individual application opens a dedicated log containing the following details:

• Contacted Domains: iOS lists every fully qualified domain name (FQDN) the application pinged. This includes the app developer’s first-party servers, content delivery networks (CDNs), cloud storage hosts, and integrated third-party SDK endpoints (such as analytics engines, advertising networks, and crash reporting tools).
• Connection Timestamps: Tapping on a specific domain reveals a chronological list of timestamps indicating precisely when the app initiated a connection to that server.
• Frequency of Contact: The report tallies the total number of times the app contacted each specific domain within the last seven days, helping users identify persistent background communication versus occasional, user-initiated requests.
• In-App Web Content: If an application renders web content internally—such as an article opened through an in-app browser or an embedded web frame—the report records domains contacted by that web session and attributes them directly to the host application.

Most Contacted Domains Overview

In addition to per-app breakdowns, the App Privacy Report includes a aggregated section titled "Most Contacted Domains." This view ranks all contacted servers across the entire device, showing which external domains were reached most frequently and listing every installed app that established a connection to them. This view is particularly useful for identifying common third-party trackers shared across multiple different applications.

Exporting Network Data

For deeper analysis, iOS provides an export option via the standard Share Sheet at the top of the App Privacy Report page. This exports the raw log in an NDJSON (Newline Delimited JSON) format. The export file contains machine-readable entries with precise UNIX timestamps, bundle identifiers, and exact domain names, enabling users to programmatically inspect network traffic patterns or cross-reference domains against public privacy and ad-blocking blocklists.