Apple’s planned ‘Hide My Email’ change sparks privacy concerns

MUMBAI: Apple is preparing to make a change to its Hide My Email feature that privacy advocates warn could reduce the effectiveness of one of the company’s most popular tools for protecting users’ identities online.

The feature, available through Apple’s iCloud+ subscription service, allows users to generate unique, random email addresses that forward messages to their personal inboxes. The system helps users sign up for apps, newsletters and online services without revealing their actual email addresses, limiting spam and reducing the amount of personal data shared with third parties.

Under the planned update, newly created Hide My Email addresses will use a dedicated ‘@private.icloud.com’ domain instead of appearing under Apple’s broader email infrastructure. Existing addresses are expected to continue functioning normally.

While the change may seem technical, privacy experts say it could have significant implications. By using a distinct domain, websites and app developers may find it easier to identify email addresses generated through Hide My Email and potentially restrict or block their use during account registration.

Currently, the feature’s effectiveness partly stems from the difficulty websites face in distinguishing Hide My Email addresses from standard Apple-managed email accounts. A dedicated domain could remove that ambiguity, allowing companies to detect users who are attempting to shield their primary email addresses.

Privacy advocates argue that such visibility may encourage some online services to reject privacy-focused email addresses, similar to how some platforms block temporary or disposable email services. Critics say that could undermine a key benefit of the feature by forcing users to disclose their real contact information.

Apple has not publicly detailed the reasoning behind the change. The company has, however, informed developers and email providers that they may need to update their systems to ensure continued compatibility with the new addresses.

The move comes as privacy tools face growing scrutiny from regulators, businesses and law enforcement agencies. Although Hide My Email masks a user’s real address from websites and apps, it does not provide complete anonymity, and Apple retains the ability to associate generated addresses with customer accounts when required by law.

Apple has long positioned privacy as a cornerstone of its products and services, making the planned modification notable among users who rely on the company’s privacy features. Whether the update significantly affects the usefulness of Hide My Email will likely depend on how websites and online platforms respond once the new domain is rolled out.

For now, privacy advocates are urging Apple to clarify the rationale behind the change and to explain how it plans to ensure that users can continue to protect their personal information online without facing new barriers.