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Apple's new iCloud Plus features include encrypted Private Relay

Among other privacy upgrades to iCloud services, Apple is boosting Safari privacy protections.

Rae Hodge Former senior editor
Rae Hodge was a senior editor at CNET. She led CNET's coverage of privacy and cybersecurity tools from July 2019 to January 2023. As a data-driven investigative journalist on the software and services team, she reviewed VPNs, password managers, antivirus software, anti-surveillance methods and ethics in tech. Prior to joining CNET in 2019, Rae spent nearly a decade covering politics and protests for the AP, NPR, the BBC and other local and international outlets.
Rae Hodge
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Apple

As part of Apple's new iCloud Plus privacy upgrades, executives at the company's WWDC event announced a new encrypted browsing feature for Safari. With a paid subscription to iCloud Plus, users will have access to a security-focused browsing service called Private Relay. The service's functions share some similarities with a virtual private network

The service aims to secure the encrypted data leaving your device, protecting it from interception even as you hop from one network to another, Apple's vice president of engineering, Mike Abbott, told conference viewers on Monday. 

Read more: Apple privacy updates tell you more about how apps use your data

"It's designed so that no one, including Apple, can see both who you are and what sites you're visiting. And it does all this without compromising performance," Abbott said. 

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The Private Relay service is one of a number of new privacy-focused features for users of iCloud, including an upgraded private email service.