logo
UK users are losing a key Apple security feature, raising questions about the future of privacy

UK users are losing a key Apple security feature, raising questions about the future of privacy

Yahoo25-02-2025

Apple users in the United Kingdom will no longer have access to a key data security feature for iCloud storage: Advanced Data Protection. It's a relatively small change, but privacy experts worry it could have ripple effects for data privacy around the world.
The iPhone maker confirmed last week that it would end access for UK users to the optional end-to-end encryption feature, which helps to ensure that only users can access their own personal data, such as photos and messages.
The move was widely viewed as an effort to avoid complying with a request from the British government for a technical 'back door' to access user data. Still, the situation could serve as an example that other governments could follow to undermine user privacy, experts say.
'This has always been one of our major concerns,' said Caroline Wilson, general counsel at UK-based nonprofit Privacy International. 'The fact that the UK government… is setting a bad precedent for other governments around the world.'
Apple said in a statement that it is 'gravely disappointed' to no longer offer the feature to UK users, 'given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy.'
But the company had little choice, experts say.
'Apple was in a very difficult spot here,' said John Verdi, senior vice president of policy at Washington, DC-based advocacy group Future of Privacy Forum. 'Folks in the United Kingdom simply will not have available the top level of security that Apple provides elsewhere in the world.'
Apple's iCloud storage service uses end-to-end encryption to protect 14 categories of sensitive data by default, including health data and passwords, stored in users' iCloud Keychain.
That means user data is basically scrambled when it's stored on Apple's servers, and only the user who holds the account can access it in its un-scrambled form. So, no one with access to Apple's servers — like hackers, or even the company itself — could read users' sensitive data.
'In the digital world, end-to-end encryption is going to be your best bet for getting a truly private and secure conversation that's kind of on the level of what you could have in person,' said Joe Mullin, a senior policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Advanced Data Protection, or ADP, extends end-to-end encryption for additional categories of data, including photos, notes, voice memos and iCloud backups (think text messages and call logs). So, in the event of a data breach, for example, content like this would be inaccessible to a hacker since even Apple can't read it.
'One of the very few ways to make sure that your data can't be leaked if a company is breached is to make sure that the company (itself) doesn't have it,' said Sarah Scheffler, an assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon's Cylab Security and Privacy Institute.
UK users will now lose protection for those additional categories of data. Those who have not already enabled ADP are no longer able to do so, and Apple says it will soon provide guidance to existing users on how to disable the feature.
There are third-party cloud storage options that offer end-to-end encryption, like NordLocker and Proton Drive. But Mullin notes that consumers are less likely to use them because they'd have to go through extra steps, whereas Apple's system can back up your phone automatically when it's locked and connected to power and Wi-Fi.
'You kind of need these encrypted services on some level from the people that are making the (operating system) on your phone,' said Mullin. 'That's why so much of the encryption conversation is around what Google and Apple are doing.'
Advanced Data Protection will still be available outside of the UK. For UK users, those standard end-to-end encrypted data categories will not change, and iMessage and FaceTime will remain end-to-end encrypted.
'It's a shame,' Verdi said. 'It makes British citizens less safe.'
Apple's move comes weeks after multiple news outlets reported that British security officials had ordered Apple to build a technical back door that would allow access to the company's global user data. The demand reportedly came under the Investigatory Powers Act, which lets British law enforcement compel access to communications and metadata from tech companies in secret.
Apple has built its brand around privacy and previously resisted building back doors to allow governments or law enforcement access to its users' information.
'As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will,' the company said in a statement regarding the change to ADP.
But without end-to-end encryption, Apple could have access to users' data, which means law enforcement could legally compel the company to hand it over to aid in the investigation and prosecution of crimes. That may be why Apple believes the move to end ADP in the region will be enough for the British government.
'The decision to pull this privacy feature in the UK is an attempt to hopefully not undermine it in the rest of the world,' Wilson said.
Apple has declined to comment directly on the British demand. The UK's Home Office, which is responsible for making requests under the Investigatory Powers Act, did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment.
But even if it makes it easier for law enforcement to access user data, it's 'impossible to provide exceptional access' to data for some parties without 'undermining security for everyone,' Verdi said.
'Either everyone is protected by strong encryption, or it's weakened for everyone,' he said.
He added that law enforcement could instead seek to access data directly from, with a warrant that compels them to unlock their devices.
In the wake of the UK's move, Verdi says he sees 'two possible futures.' In one scenario, other governments could decide they want to do the opposite of the UK and give individuals, companies and government officials the 'best security Apple has to offer,' boosting encryption protections. But some governments could also follow the UK's lead and 'seek to undermine security' by passing rules or making demands that force tech companies to weaken their encryption.
'What happens now?' said Scheffler. 'This is one piece in a very large puzzle over… the future of privacy, and the future security and the future of encryption.'

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Did iPadOS 26 just put Macs on notice? Apple exec says just ‘buy both'
Did iPadOS 26 just put Macs on notice? Apple exec says just ‘buy both'

Tom's Guide

timean hour ago

  • Tom's Guide

Did iPadOS 26 just put Macs on notice? Apple exec says just ‘buy both'

If there's one moment during WWDC 2025 where there was the biggest crowd reaction, it was the introduction of iPadOS 26. Sitting in the audience at Apple's Cupertino headquarters, I couldn't help but notice the audible cheers that accompanied many of the features announced — especially those that blur the line between iPads and Macs. You see, as powerful as the best iPads are in terms of their Apple Silicon, a lot of users have avoided switching from a Mac to an iPad as their primary computer. But with iPadOS 26, a lot of those doubts have been erased. You now get a new windowing system that makes multitasking easier, Mac-like controls for closing and titling windows and even an honest to goodness menu bar. And that's just scratching the surface of what iPadOS can do now. I sat down with Apple's Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak (Joz) during WWDC to talk about what the new iPadOS 26 means for customers and how they should decide whether to get an iPad or a new MacBook. Spoiler alert: Joz says 'I recommend buying both.' Apple has made a bunch of attempts at multitasking on the iPad, from slide over and split view to Stage Manager, but they've received more criticism than praise. With iPadOS 26, you get a bonafide windowing system that makes working with multiple apps at once a lot easier. The iPad is the ultimate touch device you can hold in your hand. But at the same time, these two products can flex toward each other to a degree. Apps still open in full-screen by default, but there's a little grab bar in the bottom right corner. Swipe it diagonally and you'll be in windowed mode. You can also easily tile windows wherever you want, but Apple still respects that this is a touch-based interface. So you can flick a window to the left or right to have it take up that part of the screen. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. 'I've gotten some questions where people are saying, 'Gosh, did you, you know, the fourth time's the charm,' or something like, sort of, 'Where were you? Were you guys just sort of shooting in the dark?' And actually, this has been what I think of as a thoughtful evolution,' said Federighi. 'You have people hooking iPads up to external displays. You have people, many of us, using cases that are have track pads and keyboards. You have apps where people are doing many more productivity workflows. So iPad has changed. The hardware has changed. The interaction has changed.' And, yes, there are familiar controls for closing apps, maximizing windows and minimizing them — yup, with the three dots. So Apple was happy to borrow UI elements from the Mac to make iPadOS better. 'The iPad is the ultimate touch device you can hold in your hand. But at the same time, these two products can flex toward each other to a degree,' said Federighi. Now that iPadOS has many of the same features as the Mac, including a desktop-like Files app and a File menu, you might be wondering if you should go for an iPad or a new MacBook. And Apple maintains that these two devices remain quite distinct despite the growing similarities. Joz has a simple solution. 'I recommend buying both,' said Joswiak. 'Yeah, not even being facetious. I mean, the reality is, it has always been a little bit of a false trade-off to say it's one or the other. The reality is, it's a small number of people, the overlap [between iPad and Mac] is actually pretty huge. 'I recommend buying both. Yeah, not even being facetious. I mean, the reality is, it has always been a little bit of a false trade-off to say it's one or the other. 'We'd love you to buy both, but that's just the reality. People love to have both. You can use your Apple Pencil and do Procreate and do some incredible things on your iPad and then turn around and export it to the Mac and do some other stuff. They're both incredible tools, and they are very different from each other.' Okay, so what if you don't have a more than, say, $1,500 on a new computing device and you're deciding between a new iPad and a new MacBook? For Federighi, a car vs truck metaphor is an apt way to break down the differences between these two types of devices. The iPad is the sleeker Cooper Mini focused on portability, while the MacBook is the powerhouse F-150 of the two, ready to do heavy-duty tasks. 'I feel like we in the industry talk a lot about this, and customers don't seem to talk about it,' said Federighi. 'They actually seem to know which one they want. And you know it has not been a struggle for most of them.' But I'd argue that the versatility of iPadOS 26 will actually make the iPad vs Mac call a tougher one for shoppers. Not in a bad way, but there's only so many people who can afford both.

Podcast: Major Indexes Edge Higher Amid Renewed U.S.-China Trade Talks
Podcast: Major Indexes Edge Higher Amid Renewed U.S.-China Trade Talks

Wall Street Journal

timean hour ago

  • Wall Street Journal

Podcast: Major Indexes Edge Higher Amid Renewed U.S.-China Trade Talks

Negotiators from the two countries are expected to discuss export controls for rare-earth minerals and jet engines, among other items. Plus: Warner Bros. Discovery shares fell after it announced plans to split the company in two. And Apple stock slid as its artificial intelligence announcements disappointed some investors. 🎧 Listen: Danny Lewis hosts the Minute Briefing podcast.

Trump-Musk fight reveals fragility of relationship between Silicon Valley and White House
Trump-Musk fight reveals fragility of relationship between Silicon Valley and White House

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Trump-Musk fight reveals fragility of relationship between Silicon Valley and White House

The falling out between President Trump and Elon Musk is just the latest reminder that the relationship between the new White House and the titans of technology has turned out to be complicated. The CEO of Tesla (TSLA) was among several big names from Silicon Valley awarded prime seats for the president's Jan. 20 Capitol inauguration, alongside Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook, Amazon (AMZN) chair Jeff Bezos, and Google (GOOG) CEO Sundar Pichai. In the five months since, the president has either confronted all of their companies in court or applied pressure on those firms with his own words. Musk and Trump made their break official last week in a series of social media posts that featured insults and threats hurled by both men. The other executives and their companies had already been grappling with a tougher-than-expected stance on their industry. Zuckerberg, for example, was not able to convince Trump to stop an antitrust trial against Meta from going forward this spring. The president has since threatened Cook's Apple with 25% duties on overseas-made iPhones and criticized the iPhone maker's ramped-up production in India. Meanwhile, the company is defending against an antitrust lawsuit led by the Justice Department, filed during President Joe Biden's administration. Trump's Justice Department has also pushed ahead with a Biden-era recommendation for a judge to break up Pichai's Google empire. Trump even called Bezos to complain about Amazon after it was reported that the online retail giant was considering displaying the cost of tariffs next to prices on its site. Trump said Bezos "solved the problem very quickly.' Yet Amazon still faces a lawsuit from Trump's Federal Trade Commission that is due to start in February 2027. The FTC, which brought the case during Biden's term in office, told a judge in the spring that it needed to push the original October 2026 trial date due to Amazon's litigation delays. One of the biggest questions facing the tech world as Trump took office was how aggressive Trump's antitrust enforcers would be following four years of a Biden administration marked by legal fights with many of Silicon Valley's biggest names. By sustaining many of these cases and probes against Big Tech, Trump has parted ways with traditional Republican-style enforcement, legal experts say. "This isn't the Bush administration," Trump's FTC chair Andrew Ferguson told a group of American CEOs this spring in Washington, D.C., referring to one of the weakest US antitrust enforcement periods in modern history. Case Western Reserve University School of Law professor Anat Alon-Beck expects the Trump administration will continue to rein in Big Tech, especially given bipartisan support for the idea that Big Tech currently has too much power. There have been some positive developments for the tech firms too. Big Tech has gained the benefit of a relaxed regulatory environment, especially in the industry of artificial intelligence, making fundraising and complying with securities laws easier. In an executive order titled 'Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,' the president rescinded Biden's executive order on AI safety and directed federal agencies to remove regulatory obstacles to US global AI dominance. "So they have to take what they can get from the current administration," Alon-Beck said. One tech giant that does have an early win from Trump is Microsoft. President Trump's antitrust cops ended what had become an uphill government effort to unwind Microsoft's (MSFT) $69 billion acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard that also began during the Biden administration. The decision came when the FTC voluntarily dropped a lawsuit that Biden's FTC boss, Lina Khan, first filed against the tie-up in December 2022. But Microsoft may not emerge unscathed, either. Bloomberg has reported that Trump officials at the FTC are also broadening a probe into Microsoft and its relationship with AI upstart OpenAI ( The probe was first launched by Khan, a key architect of a new movement seeking to expand the legal theories that can give rise to antitrust claims. In June of last year, multiple news organizations reported that the probe also involved a DOJ investigation into chipmaker Nvidia's (NVDA) competitive conduct. The probe was to address concerns over the company's dominance in the market for microprocessors that power AI. The Trump administration has not indicated it has dropped the investigation. And in April, Nvidia said in a regulatory filing that the president had kept in place Biden's export restrictions on the company's H20 AI chips to China. As for Musk, Trump this past weekend said he had no desire to repair the relationship, which he said was over. He warned there would be 'serious consequences' if Mr. Musk financed candidates to run against Republicans who voted in favor of the president's domestic policy bill. But on Monday, Trump made some conciliatory comments about Musk and Tesla. "I'd have no problem with it," Trump said at a White House event on Monday when asked if he would be willing to speak with Musk. "I'd imagine he wants to speak with me." He added, "I wish him well, very well actually." Wedbush technology analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note on Monday that he doesn't expect Trump and Musk to fully patch their soured relationship but would not be surprised if it improved in the months ahead. At the end of the day, Ives wrote, "Trump needs Musk to stay close to the Republican party and Musk needs Trump for many reasons," including a federal framework for autonomous vehicles. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store