iOS 16 Will Let iPhone Users Bypass CAPTCHAs in Supported Apps and Websites
Tapping on images of traffic lights or deciphering squiggly text to prove you are human will soon be a much less common nuisance for iPhone users, as iOS 16 introduces support for bypassing CAPTCHAs in supported apps and websites.

The handy new feature can be found in the Settings app under Apple ID > Password & Security > Automatic Verification. When enabled, Apple says iCloud will automatically and privately verify your device and Apple ID account in the background, eliminating the need for apps and websites to present you with a CAPTCHA verification prompt.
Apple recently shared a video with technical details about how the feature works, but simply put, Apple's system verifies that the device and Apple ID account are in good standing and presents what is called a Private Access Token to the app or website. This new system will offer a better user experience for tasks such as signing into or creating an account, with improved user privacy and accessibility compared to CAPTCHAs.
"Private Access Tokens are a powerful alternative that help you identify HTTP requests from legitimate devices and people without compromising their identity or personal information," said Apple, in the description of a WWDC 2022 video related to the topic.
Cloudflare and Fastly have already announced support for Private Access Tokens, meaning that the ability to bypass CAPTCHAs could be coming to millions of apps and websites powered by those platforms, and the feature will roll out more widely over time.
In the first betas of iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, Automatic Verification is enabled by default. Apple said the feature is also supported on macOS Ventura. All of the software updates are currently in beta and will be released later this year.
Related Stories
Apple in iOS 16, iPadOS 16, tvOS 16, and macOS Ventura is introducing a new "Passkeys" feature that replaces traditional passwords when signing into a website or an app. Passkeys are more secure than passwords, and protect users from phishing, malware, and other attacks aimed at gaining account access.
According to Apple, Passkeys are next-generation credentials that are safer and easier to...
Apple is expanding its privacy features with iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 by now requiring apps to ask users for their permission before accessing their clipboard.
"Apps need your permission before accessing the pasteboard to paste content from another app," Apple says on its website. Apple already requires apps to ask for their consent before accessing their microphone, camera, and location, with...
Apple this week rolled out its second developer betas of iOS 16, macOS Ventura, and related operating system updates, delivering some initial tweaks compared to the first beta. We should see the first public betas in another couple of weeks around the same time as the third developer betas, offering much wider access to the updates.
This week also saw the launch of the new 13-inch MacBook...
Apple on Monday held a keynote event that saw the introduction of iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS 13 Ventura, watchOS 9, and the new M2 Apple silicon chip, which is soon-to-be available in the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. It was a crazy event where Apple introduced feature after feature for almost two hours straight. For those who...
A group of UK network operators have formally urged the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to regulate iCloud Private Relay, claiming that Apple's privacy service is anti-competitive, potentially bad for users, and a threat to national security.
In its response to the CMA's Interim Report on mobile ecosystems, Mobile UK, a trade association of British mobile network operators,...
Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the updates coming two weeks after Apple unveiled the new software at WWDC and released the initial betas.
Registered developers can download the iOS and iPadOS 16 profiles from the Apple Developer Center, and once installed, the betas will be available over the air. Given...
iOS 15.2 did not introduce a bug that turned iCloud Private Relay off for some users, Apple said in a statement that was provided to MacRumors. The statement was in response to a T-Mobile claim that iOS 15.2 had automatically toggled the iCloud Private Relay feature off for some users.
iCloud Private Relay is an innovative internet privacy service that allows users with an iCloud+ subscription ...
T-Mobile has not disabled iCloud Private Relay for its subscribers, in contrast to recent reports suggesting the carrier was preventing iPhone users from enabling the feature.
In a statement to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, T-Mobile said that iOS 15.2 device settings that default to the feature being toggled off, and that Apple has been contacted. T-Mobile explicitly says that iCloud relay has...
Popular Stories
The redesigned MacBook Air with the all-new M2 Apple silicon chip will be available for customers starting Friday, July 15, MacRumors has learned from a retail source. The new MacBook Air was announced and previewed during WWDC earlier this month, with Apple stating availability will begin in July. The MacBook Air features a redesigned body that is thinner and lighter than the previous...
Apple today began selling refurbished Mac Studio models for the first time in the United States, Canada, and select European countries, such as Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
In the United States, two refurbished Mac Studio configurations are currently available, including one with the M1 Max chip (10-core CPU and 24-core GPU) for...
The M2 MacBook Pro has started making its way into customers' hands and we're learning more about how it performs in a variety of situations, but all eyes are really on the upcoming M2 MacBook Air which has seen a complete redesign and should be arriving in a couple of weeks.
Other top stories this week included a host of product rumors including additional M2 and even M3 Macs, an updated...
Fifteen years ago to this day, the iPhone, the revolutionary device presented to the world by the late Steve Jobs, officially went on sale.
The first iPhone was announced by Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, and went on sale on June 29, 2007. "An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator... these are not three separate devices," Jobs famously said. "Today, Apple is going to reinvent the...
There appears to be a serious bug in macOS High Sierra that enables the root superuser on a Mac with a blank password and no security check. The bug, discovered by developer Lemi Ergin, lets anyone log into an admin account using the username "root" with no password. This works when attempting to access an administrator's account on an unlocked Mac, and it also provides access at the login...
Top Rated Comments