Apple has provided federal agents with the real identities of at least two customers who used one of the company’s privacy features designed to mask their email addresses from apps and websites.
“Hide My Email” is a feature that allows paying Apple iCloud+ customers to generate anonymous email addresses that forward messages to a person’s private email address. Apple says no read messages that are forwarded. But court documents show that this email privacy feature won’t stop authorities from finding out who owns an anonymous iCloud address.
According to court records seen by TechCrunch, the FBI requested records from Apple earlier this month as part of an investigation into an email that allegedly threatened Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel, whose relationship with Patel has been widely reported.
“In response to a request from authorities, Apple provided records indicating that [the Hide My Email address] “is an anonymous email account associated with Target’s Apple account,” the statement reads. affidavit for search warrantwhat was first reported by 404 Media (via Court surveillance).
Apple provided the account holder’s full name and email address, as well as records for 134 anonymous email accounts created with Hide My Email.
TechCrunch has seen a second search warrantin which Apple provided information about another customer in response to a request from federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within ICE. The search warrant sought records from Apple during an investigation into an alleged identity fraud scheme. An HSI agent, citing “logs received from Apple” in January 2026, noted that the alleged scammer had created several anonymous email addresses through Hide My Email on multiple Apple accounts.
Apple promotes much of your iCloud service is end-to-end encryptedmeaning that no one but your customers can access your own data, not even Apple. But not all customer information is off-limits to authorities, including information Apple stores about its customers, such as their names, where they live, and their billing information, as well as unencrypted information such as emails.
The ability of authorities to access this information also highlights the privacy limitations of emails; The vast majority of emails sent, even today, are unencrypted and contain plaintext information needed to route messages around the world.
As such, demand for end-to-end encrypted messaging apps, such as Signal, has gained popularity in an effort to protect private data from both surveillance and malicious hackers.
An Apple spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
