iOS 16 will let you bypass CAPTCHAs on certain apps and websites

When iOS 16 comes out later this fall, you can see that you don't have to slide a puzzle piece or deal with the many annoying captchas asking you to differentiate between a hill and a mountain. That's because Apple has rolled out a feature called Automatic Verification for its iPhones and Macs, which tells certain sites that you're not a bot without actually doing anything (via MacRumors).

Apple has worked with two major content delivery networks, Fastly and Cloudflare, to develop the system. When it launches with iOS 16 and macOS Ventura, sites using one of the services should be able to take advantage of the system to block spam and stop showing you so many captchas. If you pay attention to how many sites go down when Fastly or Cloudflare has problems, you'll know it's a solid part of the Internet that can be significantly less annoying (especially for people who don't CAPTCHA more often than average) because they use a VPN or clear their cookies too often).

While this is far from the first attempt to drop CAPTCHA, Apple's scale means we may actually see some progress this time around. The underlying system, which Apple calls a private access token, is reminiscent of its own system for changing passwords. Here's a very simple idea of how it works: Your device looks at a variety of factors to determine whether or not you're human. When you visit a website that usually asks you to fill in a captcha, that site may ask your phone or computer if anyone is using it. If your device says yes, you will be allowed to go straight.

If you want to take an in-depth look at the details about the technology, you can watch Apple's WWDC session on it, read an Apple Insider's explainer, and see Fastly's article about it.

As with most new technology, Apple has a privacy story to go with. The company says that while your Apple ID is being used as proof that you are a real person, your phone or computer is not sending associated data (such as your email address or phone number). The only thing the site gets is essentially a thumbs-up from Apple. Similarly, Apple only knows whether your device is asking to confirm whether you are a human or not; No one knows who wants to know.

Thankfully, for Android and Windows users, Apple isn't the only one working on this technology. According to Fastly, Google also helped develop this, and the concept of being a trusted party that you're a human being is being built into Internet standards. Google started building a similar system in Chrome about two years ago and it seems to be focusing mostly on third party issuers rather than doing verification, I'd certainly consider it similar to Apple for its users. I will agree I am building a system.