New Privacy and Security Startup Cloaked Launches Apps to Protect Online Accounts
New York-based privacy and security startup Cloaked has launched its apps, allowing users to create unique proxy emails, phone numbers, and passwords for online accounts. The company is now making its solution available through multiple platforms including its web app, Chrome extension, and mobile apps (available on both Android and iOS).
Founded by brothers Arjun and Abhijay Bhatnagar in 2020, Cloaked offers a range of features that enable users to create “identities” consisting of usernames, passwords, email addresses, and phone numbers. These identities can be used for different types of websites such as e-commerce, social media, and newsletters, allowing users to avoid sharing their actual information.
The service is priced at $10 per month or $100 per year, with a free trial period of 14 days. Subscribers gain the ability to create unlimited identities.
Protecting Your Personal Information
Cloaked goes beyond traditional password managers by offering additional features to safeguard user data. Similar to Apple’s Hide My Email, Cloaked masks your real email address, but it also allows you to customize email addresses. Additionally, if you don’t want emails forwarded to your main inbox, Cloaked can act as your primary inbox. Unlike Firefox Relay, which only hides your email, Cloaked lets you autofill various forms online using the identities stored within the app.
In addition to proxy emails, Cloaked provides virtual phone numbers similar to Google Voice. These numbers can be used for SMS or signing up for services. Currently, this feature is only available in the U.S.
According to the co-founders, Cloaked operates like a phone company in terms of providing its services. Rather than using services like Twilio, Cloaked works with a tier-one carrier to handle routing for phone numbers. Similarly, they manage email routing instead of relying on thin email aliases.
Focusing on Security
Cloaked emphasizes security and privacy as core principles. The company stores customer data in separate encrypted databases to protect against breaching. Additionally, Cloaked uses a technique called data poisoning, assigning one phone number to multiple individuals to prevent data aggregators from knowing who is using the proxy number. However, for privacy reasons, if someone signs up for services like Signal, Cloaked won’t assign that number to anyone else.
The startup is also developing a zero-knowledge architecture so that users’ master passwords never reach the company’s servers. This ensures that Cloaked doesn’t have unilateral access to customer data.
The Future of Privacy Management
In the future, Cloaked plans to introduce family-sharing and group-sharing options for identities by the end of the year. They are also working on integrating credit cards into their identity system, allowing users to generate virtual cards instead of sharing their real card numbers. These virtual cards can have customizable spending limits, and users will be able to create an unlimited number of them.
Other companies, such as Uno (backed by a16z), are also focusing on simplifying privacy management through user-friendly design and workflows.