British authorities wish to force Apple to break its end -to -end encryption protections and allow it to spy on all the data stored by users around the world in its cloud storage service.
The Washington Post was the first to report on the unknown order that the great technology giant would have received last month.
People familiar with the case told the publication that Apple had to stop offering quantified storage in the United Kingdom, rather than undermining confidentiality and security promised by its services. However, this may not be sufficient for Apple to completely avoid the obligation to comply with the stolen door requests in other countries.
Emitted under the controversial 2016 Investigatory Powers Act, the British order adds to continuous pressures in Europe and beyond to create derivations in encrypted software that could facilitate criminal surveys of the application of the law. Technologists and confidentiality experts, however, have long explained how it would undermine the overall security of citizens while fueling blind mass monitoring. After Apple, they fear now that Meta and Google can become the next target of the United Kingdom.
Stolen door request for the United Kingdom’s encryption
British opinion targets all users of encrypted content, iPad, iPad and MacOS around the world, using Advanced Data Protection (ADP) of Apple.
Although this is not a default feature, users can manually activate this protection for additional confidentiality and security to encrypt all stored data. This means that even Apple itself cannot access these files. It should be mentioned that the FBI also expressed its concerns about this feature when it was launched in 2022.
So far, Apple and even the British interior office have refused to share comments on the issue, the latter saying that it does not confirm or refuse the existence of such an opinion.
Considered by its detractors to snoop, the law on the power of investigation allows the police “to force the assistance of companies to the need to collect evidence,” said an anonymous source of Washington Post near The question.
Worse still, among other things, the proposed modification of last year to the law seeks to demand that all technological companies require the approval of the Ministry of the Interior before adding new safety or confidentiality features, encryption included . At the time, Apple strongly criticized the proposal, arguing that it “would undermine fundamental human rights”.
🚨The British government has issued a secret order * to have constant access to all of our iPhone data. Will also be… 2025 is the new 1984?! https://t.co/ho5paofgeFebruary 7, 2025
“This is a deeply worrying step that has enormous ramifications for the encryption and confidentiality of data from people around the world,” Techradar Jurgita Misvicuute, head of Proton policy, told Techradar.
The supplier behind one of the best VPNs, encrypted emails and driving services on the market, Proton fears that Apple’s conformity creates a dangerous precedent in the fight against encrypted applications.
Other experts and defenders of privacy fear that Google and Meta be next. The two companies, in fact, offer encrypted backup options.
In a tweet on X, the director of Big Brother Watch, Silkie Carlo, wrote: “He is completely unprecedented for a government in any democracy to take our ability to have a private conversation, without the listening state, Far from millions of its millions of citizens – not to mention the world.
It is not only our confidentiality at stake, however. Experts also argue that, at the technical level, encryption deadlines will create more problems than they solve by allowing cybercriminals to exploit vulnerable entry points.
“The wanderings of encryption that leave only the right guys are impossible,” said Misvicuute. “Deleting access to end-to-end encryption in the United Kingdom for people’s files would be a huge step back that would create a two-level system, would erode confidence and expose British users to surveillance and cyber -Menaces. “
