In what feels like a very backwards step, Apple is taking away its best data security tool from UK customers after the government demanded access to user data, that Apple itself couldn’t access.
Advanced Data Protection (ADP) means that data is stored online via a process called end-to-end encryption, which means only account holders can view items they’ve saved like photos or documents. At the beginning of February, the UK government apparently demanded to be able to access encrypted data stored by Apple users in its cloud service under the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) which would allow them to look at individual data when national security required it, not to use it as blanket surveillance.
Eventually, not all UK data stored on iCloud will be encrypted fully. Authorities would still have to follow a legal process, as they do currently with accessing unencrypted data, to gain entry to a specific account.
Instead of building a ‘back door’ into its ADP service, something Apple has always refused to do, Apple will remove the use of ADP from UK users altogether. It insists that by creating a way to access ADP data, it would open its service up to exploitation from bad actors who would also want access. Others say it sets a worrying precedent for other regimes across the globe, as if Apple yielded to the UK’s requests to build access into their product, every country across the globe would want them to do the same.
Global implications
Trouble comes, with the IPA applying globally, not just in the UK. So by only removing ADP for UK users, Apple isn’t necessarily complying fully with demands. But this is a worry to other countries, who don’t think the UK should be able to make such wide-sweeping demands, which could affect the privacy of US users, too.
As it happens, ADP is an opt-in service, and we don’t know how many people across the UK are using it. So it potentially won’t affect the average Apple user necessarily however it does raise some pretty important questions as to responsibility, privacy, and access to private data.
Any Apple user in the UK attempting to turn on ADP now gets offered an error message.
Further reading: Apple suspends AI generated news
