Earlier this month reports emerged that the UK government issued an order to Apple to give it access to users’ encrypted data, reigniting the debate around digital privacy.The issue centered around Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) tool, which is a feature that uses end-to-end encryption to ensure only users that are signed in on a trusted device can view their personal files, excluding even Apple from accessing the data.The order issued by the government, which will not be published, would have required Apple to give authorities a backdoor through which it could access the encrypted data for UK users.
Apple has consistently reiterated that it opposes creating any backdoors for its encryption because it defeats the entire purpose of encryption – so it opted to simply turn off ADP in the UK, meaning that not all customer data stored via iCloud will be fully encrypted.I believe the UK government’s decision is a total travesty, both from the perspective of global privacy and cybersecurity, as well as its ability to compete in the global tech industry.Firstly, from a consumer rights perspective this is an unquestionable loss.
Though the government maintains that encryption backdoors are important for combatting crime this logic totally misses the myriad ways in which encryption protects citizens.Modern cryptography techniques have been a huge leap forward in terms of protecting people’s private data. Encryption means you can access your bank account from your phone.
