To wonder why dd doesn't want to join our family data storage?

[Niamhanna]

We've purchased a 200 GB storage plan on apple for our iPhones. Our younger daughter has joined it, but our older dd (aged 18) is refusing to, saying it's an invasion of privacy and she wants to keep her phone completely separate.

AIBU to wonder what she has on her phone that she wouldn't want us to see?

Here's how I explain unencrypted data to trainees:

Prepare a flyer with your families full names, address, telephone numbers, DOB, all bank, credit card and mortgage details. Add your NI numbers, any email addresses and online passwords and aliases. Perhaps your driving licence number and vehicle registration, maybe your NHS numbers. Put a good, ID standard photograph on it of each of you.

Print off a few thousand at a time. Hand them out in town, in supermarkets, maybe display them on bus shelters or tuck them under the windscreen wipers of cars. Pop a copy on FB, Twitter and Instagram.

That's what you're doing when you save unencrypted data to a shared source, except you're leafleting the internet. Nothing might come of it, but would you take the chance?

Your DD doesn't even have to be sexually active, it could all be crashingly boring stuff on the phone, BUT, she has a right to privacy. Add in the fact that your data plan is unencrypted, I can totally see why she doesn't want to join.

Your OP also gives hints you'd have a nosy at her data, too. Not good.

I wouldn’t do this with my parents now (at the age of 40) never mind at the age of 18. There is nothing dodgy on my phone but it’s not my parent’s business as to what’s on it as long as it’s legal.

If the data isnt encrypted, then I wouldn’t want to put my own data on it tbh.
That’s about safety of your data and how people can access it.

I think your dd is much more savvy than you in that one

Jeez, the very idea of my mother knowing what I got up at 18

Well it sounds like you just want to snoop through her stuff frankly. Absolutely creepy, or else why would you be annoyed? I suspect she knows this, hence refusing. And I suspect that this is why you want her to upload her data to iCloud, so that you have access to snoop.

No way on earth would I share cloud data storage with anyone: at the very least you could easily download her phone backup onto your phone....and then you essentially have her phone in your hand as you’ll have all her data from the point it was saved in the cloud! Everything from texts, photos, app data (facebook, insta etc accounts would be auto logged in), saved passwords, emails etc - EVERYTHING. The text message chain with her & her boyfriend or even best friends....I’m sure we all probably send messages/photos/memes that we don’t want our friend’s mum to snoop through, let alone our own mum. She has the right to privacy at 18.

iCloud backups weren’t designed to be accessed by multiple people. They are used so that the device user can easily pick up where they left off if anything happens to their device, if multiple people have access to this then privacy would be threatened.

Also iCloud data isn’t even expensive. Just get separate plans. I pay a measly 79p for 20GB iCloud storage which is more than enough for my two iphones and photos. No need for a family set up.

She's 18. It's none of your business.

Good for her. When I was that age I would not have wanted my DM reading my post or listening on the extension if I was on the landline - the nearest equivalents - and she would not have wanted to.

I think you need to realise that your daughter is an adult now and you don’t have the right to unfiltered access/snooping into her personal life.

If there’s aspects of her life that she doesn’t tell you about (boyfriends, sex, what happened on a night out/drunken antics etc or even as menial as what she had for breakfast) then tough - it’s not your right to know

Grow up and start treating your daughter like the adult she is. You sound overbearing.

also by unencrypted, she means that you* would have access to her data, which is why she wants to keep it all separate

'Family' data storage?

a: not secure
b: creepy

Not a chance would I do this and I'm knocking 50.

You are not only being VVVVU...but quite frankly you are being weird and creepy! I feel very sorry for your daughter! And any other member of your family forced to share their private information via 'family data sharing' with you! Back off!

Yes I think on the whole YABU.

It's not at all surprising that someone wouldn't want to share their data with their family members.

I'm not sure why you think that's at all strange tbh.

Let her do her own thing OP . This is perfectly normal of her.

Look she is an adult, leave her alone to make her own decisions.

'Hiding'?!

I can see why she wants to keep her personal life a MILLION miles away from you...

I'm with your daughter on this. It's her phone, her decision. It doesn't mean she's hiding anything. Also, if you don't know why encrypted data is, I'd be more worried about what what YOU do online, and all those hackers you could be letting in.

As far as I'm aware, sharing data with your family with Apple doesn't give you access to their files, just you share the total amount. I can't see DH's files but he can use my 200GB allowance if he wants.

However, I have 150GB of stuff myself, maybe your daughter has loads already. If so, it's a bugger to move it somewhere else. What if she wants more storage, or something different etc? She'll have to ask you to sort it out on your account or move it all somewhere else again.

TBH at 18yo she's probably already got her own account with cloud storage. 200GB with Apple is dirt cheap, so she's probably fine paying her own. Don't see it as a snub but that she's an adult and has already sorted herself out.

Apple family storage doesn't mean you see each others data - each user has their own account on shared space.

If she keeps her phone encrypted she can back it up encrypted to Apple storage. I wouldn't keep unencrypted personal data on that platform either (or other big name plan of this type)

She also may not want to see your photos. Does the concept of privacy not exist in your world? Your children are also correct about the lack of security.

Perhaps she uses her phone to talk to her friends about her creepy, controlling parents.

her creepy, controlling parents

Who won't be able to see her data. Its a shared space, not a shared account.

She is right about encrypting but other login accounts cannot see her data.