Two years after Apple provides an encrypted storage feature for iPhone users, the company is withdrawing this security protection in Britain instead of compliance with the government’s request to create a tool for granting law enforcement institutions access to cloud data for customers.
Starting on Friday, IPHONE users in Britain will start seeing a message on their phones, saying that Apple is no longer able to present it The advantage of protecting its advanced data. The ability to encrypt almost all their iCloud data allows, making messages, notes, photos, and backup iphone, even when information was stored in cloud computing centers.
Apple removes the feature after the British government demanded the company to create a rear door that would allow intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials to recover the iPhone user data from data centers around the world, according to two people familiar with the request, who spoke about the lack of disclosure of its identity Because of the sensitive nature of the British government’s request.
The government’s request came in a secret order early this year, after Britain amended the law of the 2016 investigation authorities, which allows them to force companies to deliver data and communications to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Last year, Apple protested the amendments to the parliament, saying it could give the British government the authority to issue secret orders to break encryption services and create a rear door in software products.
By getting rid of this feature, Apple hopes that the British government will drop its request to create a rear door for user user data. But there is an opportunity for the British government to continue to press for this access, on the pretext that people who may use service abroad pose a threat to the British interest.
“We are very disappointed,” Farid Sainz, Apple spokesman, said in a statement. He said that the protection of advanced data has provided the protection of British customers against breaches and security violations.
“As we said several times beforeMr. Sainz added:
The British Ministry of Interior did not have a statement immediately.
Washington Post It was previously reported about the British government’s request.
Apple gets rid of the Apple to protect advanced data to the clock to the amount of access to the IPHONE users that can be accessed for the British authorities. Before submitting it, Apple refused to help apply the law in opening iPhone devices, but received requests for iCloud backup that included non -coded messages and images.
The Apple encryption gap in data centers allowed you to get secret messages in secret cases in high -level situations. In the United States, law enforcement officials were able to request the ICLOS backup of Paul Manafort, President of President Trump’s campaign for 2016.
For years, Apple has fully resisted iCloud data encryption because it wants to facilitate customers to recover their information if they are closed from their accounts. But as data violations increased around the world, the company moved to expand encryption offers in 2022 while protecting advanced data. The feature is optional and must be operated by users.
The clash between Apple and the British government is mentioned The battle that the company conducted with the FBI in 2016 On access to iPhone used by a striker who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, the FBI wanted to open the striker Apple iPhone, but Apple refused. the The government finally managed to reach With the help of piracy company.
In the years after that, Apple marketed its devices as more private than its competitors, and promised that what is on the iPhone remains on the iPhone. The company broadcast a commercial advertisement last year showing surveillance cameras, which are common in the British streets, flying around and looking at the shoulders of people looking at their phones. When iPhone users open their Safari browser, the cameras explode.
The views of encryption have turned throughout the United States government after a recent violation of American communications. During the elections last year, a penetration process related to the Chinese government by a group called Hurricane salt targeted devices For Mr. Trump and JD Vance, his running companion. After that, the Cyber Security Agency and the US infrastructure urged smart phone users to use encrypted communication systems.
“The encryption is the glue and the mortar that carries our digital life together,” said Joseph Lorenzo Hall, a distinguished technician in the Internet Association, a non -profit organization that defends the Internet infrastructure. “This would lead to a collapse not only but the catastrophic collapses.”
