Apple disables end-to-end encryption for UK iCloud users after government push

What just happened? Apple has caved to pressure from the UK government and scrapped its toughest encryption safeguards for new users nationwide. As of this week, new iPhone owners in the country are being stripped of Apple's uber-secure "Advanced Data Protection" feature. Meanwhile, existing ADP users will have to disable the feature manually during an unspecified grace period. The about-face comes after months of Apple pushing back against demands that it create a backdoor to allow government snooping on encrypted data. Rather than cave and risk compromising the integrity of its systems worldwide, Apple decided to simply yank the Advanced Data Protection option for new UK users. Advanced Data Protection was Apple's extra layer of security that encrypted synced iCloud content such as photos, notes, reminders, bookmarks, and iCloud backups in such a way that only users could access it on trusted devices. It was essentially end-to-end encryption that stored the keys on the user's devic ... Read full article.