Earlier this month, the UK government demanded access to encrypted data stored on Apple servers. This demand was worldwide in scope, and would have required Apple building a backdoor into its encryption scheme for iCloud and related services.
Today, Apple has responded by announcing it will disable Advanced Data Protection in the UK. ADP is the optional setting that adds end-to-end encryption for iCloud data, device backups, message backups, and more.
Mark Gurman has more at Bloomberg:
“We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy,” the company said in a statement. “ADP protects iCloud data with end-to-end encryption, which means the data can only be decrypted by the user who owns it, and only on their trusted devices.”
Apple previously called a bill from the UK Parliament that sought access to user data “unprecedented overreach by the government.” At the time, the company said that “the UK could attempt to secretly veto new user protections globally preventing us from ever offering them to customers.”
Customers already using Advanced Data Protection, or ADP, will need to manually disable it during an unspecified grace period to keep their iCloud accounts. The company said it will issue additional guidance in the future to affected users and that it does not have the ability to automatically disable it on their behalf. The move to pull its encryption feature — rather than complying and building a backdoor — is a clear rebuke of the government’s order.
This leaves users in the UK without a way to fully encrypt their iCloud data, meaning the government can request — and receive — that data. I suspect other governments will follow its lead.
