If you’ve ever logged on to a website and needed to locate streetlights, pedestrian crossings, or move puzzle pieces into an image, you’ve used a CAPTCHA test.
This technology is designed to hold back automated spam requests to access a website by running a “Turing test” on the spot. Basically, it helps prove that the user is a human being and not, as often happens, a bot bought to constantly request data from a site or test its defenses.
In iOS 16, changing the settings can help bypass captchas, while allowing users to access all the features of the respective websites. With that in mind, here’s how to bypass captcha with your iPhone in iOS 16.
What is captcha?
Are you wondering what the term CAPTCHA means? It stands for “Fully Automated General Turing Test for Telling Computers and Humans Away.”
It’s not the sexiest phrase, but the idea is that it assures anyone accessing the website hosting the CAPTCHA that they are human using visual cues that, in theory, cannot be read by a computer or AI.
How to bypass captchas in iOS 16
Setting up a captcha bypass in iOS 16 is simple and takes no more than a minute:
- open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Click on apple idthen select Password and security.
- At the bottom of the page, make sure to toggle for Auto check On (green).
The Apple description below reads “Bypass CAPTCHAs” in apps and on the web by allowing iCloud to automatically and privately verify your device and account. Safe way.
How does the captcha bypass work in iOS 16?
Since your iPhone is intrinsically linked to your Apple ID, the iOS 16 captcha bypass primarily works by guaranteeing you — to an extent.
This is an oversimplification of course, but it’s about the site you’re accessing, asking for a verification code. Your iOS device then requests it from Apple’s servers, and the connection then passes that verification via a token assigned to your device and account.
While this is not available in macOS Ventura and iPadOS 16.1 at the moment, it can be a very useful feature if you finally get tired of trying to type those CAPTCHA codes in a hurry while trying to log into a website.