Users of Apple’s iCloud Private Relay, a service designed to protect paid iCloud subscribers from online trackers, are experiencing outages in key markets, hindering access to web services and apps that require internet connectivity.
Reports indicate that the downtime of iCloud Private Relay has impacted Apple users in regions such as Europe, India, Japan, and the United States since Thursday. These intermittent outages are preventing users from browsing the web through the Safari browser and causing connectivity issues with various apps.
Apple’s System Status web page confirms the ongoing iCloud Private Relay outage, cautioning users that the service may be slow or entirely unavailable for some individuals.
Introduced in 2021 for iCloud+ subscribers, iCloud Private Relay is a security feature that shields Apple users from online tracking by encrypting their internet traffic. By routing requests through two separate internet relays, this DNS service prevents web trackers and ISPs from profiling users based on their IP addresses, location, and browsing activities. The technology relies on the Oblivious DNS-over-HTTPS protocol, developed by Apple in partnership with Cloudflare in 2020.
If you are facing issues due to the ongoing iCloud Private Relay outage, you can temporarily disable the service by navigating to Settings > Profile > iCloud > Private Relay.
Apple has yet to respond to requests for comment regarding this situation.
