Apple follows a stringent policy, strictly prohibiting governments from bypassing their encryption protocols. Their commitment to users’ data privacy was reaffirmed in light of the UK’s denied request for user data access.
The fallout from this has triggered Apple to refuse the UK their highest premium data security services.
Advanced Data Protection through end-to-end encryption is only afforded to users, with even Apple executives excluded from having oversight of users’ data.
Now, Apple has taken the unprecedented decision to remove the UK’s rights to their toughest data protection tool. A figure on global users of Apple’s encryption is impossible to estimate due to their responsible. Once users opts-in and activates the tool, encryption is respected.
Zoe Kleinman, Technology Editor at the BBC, said Apple was proving that it will not be “bossed around” and forced to share users’ data at the flippant request of governments, when the tech giant have always upheld privacy as a core value.
They are opposed, as they have always been, to creating “any backdoors” for encryption, instead deciding to withdraw its crucial security tool from the UK. Other countries are unaffected but Apple is projecting a series warning amid international regulators trying to determine the conditions of their service.
Apple will drop their agreement to grant Advanced Data Protection in the UK, resulting in some users losing data encryption in the iCloud.
Encrypted data is permitted to be shared with law enforcement agencies in rare circumstances. Without acknowledging the UK’s clear breach, Apple commented it was “gravely disappointed” that the security service was no longer available for UK customers.
“As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products, and we never will,” it continued.
With current users’ access to be disabled soon, the latest development shows Apple will not give in to governments wanting control.
