Apple has removed Advanced Data Protection functionality in iCloud for users across the UK following the UK government's demands for a backdoor to allow law enforcement access to encrypted data, according to CyberScoop.
While UK users of ADP will be forced to deactivate the feature, such a move would not omit end-to-end encryption for iMessage, Facetime, iCloud KeyChain, and Health data, noted Apple, which remained hopeful that the feature will be reinstated in the future especially with the growing prevalence of data privacy threats.
Apple's restriction of the feature in the UK alone also ensures continued E2E data protection for other users around the world, according to Internet Society technologist Joseph Lorenzo Hall.
Such a development comes more than a week after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was urged by Sen. Ron Wyden. D-Ore., and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., to evaluate the U.S.'s cybersecurity agreements with the UK should Apple be mandated to develop a backdoor on its encryption systems, which would be detrimental to U.S. privacy and security.
