Apple will hide your email address from apps and websites, but not cops

Apple has provided national agents with the existent identities of astatine slightest 2 customers who utilized 1 of the company’s privateness features designed to disguise their email addresses from apps and websites.

“Hide My Email” is simply a diagnostic that allows paying Apple iCloud+ customers to make anonymous email addresses that guardant messages to a person’s backstage email address. Apple says it does not read messages that are forwarded. But the tribunal documents amusement that this email privateness diagnostic volition not forestall instrumentality enforcement from discovering who owns an anonymous iCloud address.

According to tribunal records seen by TechCrunch, the FBI requested records from Apple earlier this period arsenic portion of an probe into an email allegedly threatening Alexis Wilkins, the woman of FBI manager Kash Patel, whose narration with Patel has been widely reported. 

“In effect to a instrumentality enforcement request, Apple provided records indicating that [the Hide My Email address] is an anonymized email relationship associated with the Target Apple Account,” reads the affidavit for the hunt warrant, which was first reported by 404 Media (via Court Watch).

Apple provided the relationship holder’s afloat sanction and email address, arsenic good arsenic records for 134 anonymized email accounts created utilizing Hide My Email.

TechCrunch has seen a second hunt warrant, successful which Apple turned implicit accusation astir different lawsuit successful effect to a petition from national agents with Homeland Security Investigations, a portion wrong ICE. The hunt warrant sought records from Apple during an probe into an alleged individuality fraud scheme. An HSI agent, citing “records received from Apple” successful January 2026, noted that the alleged fraudster had created respective anonymized email addresses done Hide My Email crossed aggregate Apple accounts.

Apple touts much of its iCloud work arsenic end-to-end encrypted, meaning that cipher different than its customers tin entree their ain data, not adjacent Apple. But not each lawsuit accusation is beyond instrumentality enforcement’s reach, including accusation Apple stores astir its customers, specified arsenic their names, wherever they live, and their billing information, arsenic good arsenic unencrypted information, specified arsenic emails.

The quality for instrumentality enforcement to entree this accusation besides underscores the privateness limitations of emails; the immense bulk of emails sent, adjacent today, are not encrypted and incorporate plaintext accusation needed to way messages astir the world.

As such, request for end-to-end encrypted messaging apps, similar Signal, has ballooned successful popularity successful an effort to support backstage information from some surveillance and malicious hackers.

A spokesperson for Apple did not respond to a petition for comment.