GoKawiilFacepalm: Apple's iCloud Private Relay, the company's privacy-protecting service for Safari that comes with any paid iCloud+ plan, doesn't appear to be as private as Cupertino claims. A new report has revealed how attackers can learn a Private Relay user's real IP address, and many websites may already have collected the information. The same issue also affects the Onion Browser iOS app.
The discovery comes from security researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk, who found three WebKit features that bypass application-level proxy settings: DNS prefetching, WebAuthn Related Origin Requests, and WebTransport. WebKit underpins Safari and, in most countries, every other browser available on iOS.
Private Relay isn't the same as a traditional VPN. When Safari traffic leaves the device, it is encrypted and sent through two relays, separating the user's IP address from the sites they visit so neither Apple nor its infrastructure partner sees both. Unlike a VPN, however, it does not tunnel every connection at the operating-system level. The service has previously faced opposition from European mobile carriers.
The most concerning leak involves WebAuthn, the standard behind passkeys. A webpage can trigger a Related Origin Request that Apple's credential service fetches directly from the device rather than through Safari.
The destination server therefore receives the real IP address. The researchers say this can happen in the background without a passkey prompt or any other sign to the user. The behavior has been present since iOS 18.
The other flaws are newer. DNS prefetching, available since iOS 26, can expose the user's real DNS servers, while WebTransport has opened direct HTTP/3 connections that reveal the device's IP since iOS 26.4. 404 Media confirmed that the researchers' proof-of-concept site revealed an IP address Private Relay should have concealed.
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The WebKit flaws also affect proxy-based privacy browsers, including Psylo and Onion Browser. Psylo 1.3.1 blocks DNS-prefetch hints and disables WebTransport and WebAuthn by default, allowing users to re-enable them per site. Onion Browser's stricter Silver security level already disables WebTransport, avoiding that particular leak, but the other issues remain outside its developers' control.
Mysk and Haj Bakry contacted the Tor Project and Onion Browser's developers. After publishing, they also submitted the findings to Apple, which quickly updated the report's status to indicate that it plans to address the issue. A fix is scheduled for fall 2026. Apple separately told 404 Media it was investigating.
The incident follows another embarrassment for Apple's paid privacy tools. It was reported last month that a flaw in Hide My Email could expose the real addresses behind supposedly anonymous aliases. Apple fixed that bug shortly after it became public, despite having been notified more than a year earlier.