Daring Fireball: Apple Pulls Advanced Data Protection From the UK, in Defiance of UK Demand for Global Backdoor

Apple responds as many suspected they might to the UK's demand to allow access to encrypted information by removing the capability for that country.

Rather than comply, Apple is choosing instead to pull Advanced Data Protection from the UK. For UK users not already using ADP, the ability to enable it was already turned off before Apple's statement was sent. This report from BBC News has a screenshot of what UK users see if they attempt to enable it today.

[…] On issues pertaining to security and privacy, Apple always explains its policies and features as best it can. The fact that Apple has offered no hint as to why they're doing this is a canary statementof sorts: they're making clear as best they can that they're under a legal gag order that prevents them from even acknowledging that they're under a legal gag order, by not telling us why they're no longer able to offer ADP in the UK. This sort of read-between-the-lines implicit confirmation that they're under a gag order is the only sort of confirmation they can legally offer, at risk of imprisonment.

Reminder that it wasn't that long ago that the US Government and FBI were suing Apple to break encryption and install backdoors as well.

To reiterate my position on privacy and encryption vis-a-vis Apple. I don't have saintly belief that Apple is mission driven on this per se. I believe they have identified Health as one of their giant markets and they believe that you cannot be successful there unless you have a strong position on privacy and encryption. I believe that Apple looks at requests to compromise on these features as a loss against an entire giant market they believe has a ton of revenue for them. Google, Amazon, Meta (Facebook) have already lost this option.