Don’t use the bold feature of iOS to hide sensitive information and this is why

One of the features of the image editing tool on iOS is the ability to highlight a specific area (Highlighter). This feature allows users to highlight a text area with the purpose of making users more focused on it, but in addition, this feature is also used by many users to try to mask some sensitive information. Thank you, like your name, date, flight ticket number, … before posting it on social media.

Although this feature seems to have basically done its job of cloaking the above information, the reality is not so, and users are recommended not to use the feature. This is for the purpose of hiding personal information.

Recently, a Reddit member with the nickname “M1ghty_boy has posted a video showing that only by a few steps of editing photos with dark areas, increasing the contrast … the details are covered by the tool. Highlighter can easily be seen.

The reason is that with the default mode, the opacity of the highlighting tool is not set at 100%. This means that “someone” can completely see through the black layer to easily see what is covered. This is not a serious bug or security issue because Apple did not create this tool for users to “hide” sensitive information.

If you really want to hide sensitive information, increase the opacity to 100% or use other blur tools. And if you’ve ever posted the information covered by the tool on social media, delete it before someone else tries to exploit your personal information.