After T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T also confirmed to The Verge that they did not deliberately block Apple’s new iCloud privacy relay feature. Some previous reports said that some iPhone users were unable to enable this special feature normally under cellular mobile networks. Verizon spokesman George L. Koroneos confirmed that Private Relay works on its cellular and FIOS Internet connections. AT&T spokesman Seth Bloom added that the company has no policies that prevent the feature.
T-Mobile’s situation is a little more complicated, although most customers won’t have any issues using iCloud Private Relay. However, when content filtering services are enabled (such as Home Control), these customers will not be able to access Apple’s privacy relay service normally.
@9to5mac Looks like @TMobile USA is also blocking #icloud Public Relay. I’m a former Sprint user.
— Jon Guidry (@guidryjd) January 10, 2022
A T-Mobile spokesperson also explained to The Verge that it found a bug in Apple’s recent iOS 15.2 update that caused the iCloud privacy relay to be turned off by default. The company has reported the matter to Apple, and the same problem occurs with customers of other carriers.
If it turns out that the problem is on Apple’s side, that might explain some Verizon or AT&T customers experiencing the same problem after the iOS 15.2 update — even if they were generally unhappy with Apple’s privacy relay feature.
The British “Daily Telegraph” reported that European operators including Vodafone, Telefonica, Orange and T-Mobile have signed a joint letter. Operators implore the European Commission to prevent the launch of Privacy Relay in the European market on the grounds that it would cut off the operator’s ability to access important network data and metadata between other networks/servers (including the carrier).
As for Apple’s iCloud Private Relay service, which is similar in many ways to a virtual private network, it’s designed to help users block online activity tracking from the company, ISPs, and any other third parties.
This feature is currently still in beta, not turned on by default, and is only available to users who have subscribed to a paid iCloud plan. In addition, Private Relay has some limitations, such as not blocking rough geolocation information, and only being available in the Safari browser that comes with Apple devices.