iCloud Private Relay outage hits iPhone Safari users

Apple's iCloud Private Relay that protects user privacy while browsing, is currently slow or unavailable, leaving some Safari users unable to search.

iCloud Private Relay, available as part of iCloud+, encrypts your data so that rogue sites can't track your location. Specifically, it sends Safari requests through two separate, secure routes, so that no one can see where you are or what sites you're browsing.

Right now, however, Apple is reporting that there is an ongoing issue with the service. "Some users are affected," it says. "This service may be slow or unavailable."

At time of writing the issue has persisted for around 14 hours. Apple says it began on Thursday, July 26, at 2:34 P.M. Eastern.

There have been no further details from Apple, but users have been reporting how it's affected them. Specifically, iPhone users have said that Safari gets stuck on searches.

It's not clear how widespread this issue is. Nor is it clear why it would be affecting Safari on iPhone and apparently not, or less so, on the Mac.

At least some users are reporting that turning iCloud Private Relay off and on again, is fixing the issue. Others are suggesting that restarting the iPhone has resolved it too.

iCloud Private Relay was originally launched in 2021. It had an outage in 2022, when most of iCloud's features did too.