Apple's Hide My Email Feature Has a Privacy Problem You Should Know About

Apple offers a feature called Hide My Email that creates fake email addresses to protect your real one when signing up for websites and services. The idea is that you can use these temporary addresses instead of your actual email, keeping your identity more private. However, a new report reveals this service has failures that may not hide your email as effectively as intended.

If you use an iPhone, iPad, or Mac and have turned on Hide My Email through iCloud Plus, this affects you.

While the specific technical details of the flaw were not fully described in the available information, the failure means your email privacy may not be as protected as Apple promises. Anyone who relies on this feature thinking their real email address is completely hidden should be aware it may not work perfectly in all situations.

Here is what you should do now. First, review where you have used Hide My Email addresses. You can find this list in your iPhone Settings under your Apple ID, then iCloud, then Hide My Email. Second, for your most sensitive accounts like banking, healthcare, or anything involving your children, consider using your real email address and securing it with a strong unique password instead. Third, turn on two factor authentication for your actual email account to add an extra layer of protection. For better privacy going forward, remember that no single privacy tool is perfect. Use a combination of protections: strong unique passwords for every account, two factor authentication everywhere it is offered, and careful thinking about what information you share online. If privacy is very important for a specific account, research whether the privacy tool you are using has known issues before trusting it completely.