T-Mobile is no stranger to having questionable privacy issues in the T-Life app. For example, about a year ago, a toggle, which is on by default, was added that gave permission for them to “profile” you by your account and personal information. That toggle is still there, by the way, and now there’s another one to worry about.
As first spotted on Reddit, the T-Life app has added a toggle for a “screen recording tool” built right into the app. If the description within the app is accurate, it’s exactly as awful as it sounds. When this “tool” is enabled, it appears T-Mobile will be recording your screen while you’re using the app.
The feature is there, according to the description within the app itself, so T-Mobile can analyze the footage so it can “improve your experience.” It also says that T-Mobile is the only one with access to this footage, as if that somehow makes it better.
The more worrying part is not the fact that the tool is there, but that it’s on by default. At first, it seemed like the switch was only flipped on by default for iPhone 16 users, but a slew of comments suggest that this affects Samsung and Google Pixel phones as well.
It’s safe to say that any phone can have the toggle, and if the feature is available on your device, it’s on by default. The good news is that you can turn it off, but a lot of people won’t even know that’s there in the first place.
When asked for a statement, T-Mobile gave us the following:
To help us give customers who use T-Life a smoother experience, we are rolling out a new tool in the app that will help us quickly troubleshoot reported or detected issues. This tool records activities within the app only and does not see or access any personal information. If a customer’s T-Life app currently supports the new functionality, it can be turned off in the settings under preferences.
T-Mobile Media Relations
Interestingly, we’ve also heard a rumor that the new toggle has angered Apple. The word through the grapevine is that Apple gave T-Mobile 24 hours to remove the feature or they’ll remove the app from the App Store. That being said, it could be an exaggeration or hyperbole, as many things spread via rumor are, so take that with a grain of salt.
I personally doubt that it’s recording your screen at all times while you’re using the app. I’m not sure there’s a lot to do with those kinds of recordings, and it would probably make the T-Life app an absolute unusable battery hog if it were the case—constantly recording your screen and uploading the footage to a server is a bit on the battery-intensive side.
My guess would be that this tool allows for T-Mobile to see and record interactions and activities with the app for development purposes. Hopefully it isn’t actually recording video of the screen, but who knows.
That being said, the way the feature is being described in the app is very weirdly worded. And it certainly doesn’t help the company’s case that the feature, which was not there before, is being turned on by default on phones at random.
If you do want to disable it, it’s at least relatively easy.
- Open the T-Life app and sign in as normal, then go to the Manage tab.
- Hit the settings “gear” button at the top right.
- Scroll down to the “Preferences” section, and if it’s enabled on your device, you’ll see “Screen Recording Tool”.
- Tap it, and turn it off.
If the feature is not showing on your end, there’s nothing you need to do at the moment, but you might want to stay vigilant in case it does turn up on its own in a future update.
