What Apple pulling UK Advanced Data Protection means for you

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What Apple pulling *** Advanced Data Protection means for you

Liv McMahon

Technology reporter

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Apple has made headlines by pulling its most advanced data security tool for *** customers.

It is removing Advanced Data Protection (ADP) after the Home Office asked for the right to be able to access data which it is applied to – something even Apple itself cannot currently do.

Rather than comply with that request, on Friday the tech giant said it

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and remove existing user access at a later date.

The move has prompted criticism of the *** government’s actions – but also confusion about what protections remain for *** Apple customers.

What is Apple’s Advanced Data Protection?

ADP is an opt-in data security tool designed to provide users of devices such as iPhones with a more secure way to protect data stored in their iCloud accounts.

Items including back-ups, photos, notes and voice memos are given standard encryption by default.

The company can be ordered to hand over this data by law enforcement.

ADP, meanwhile, applies an extra level of protection through what’s known as end to end encryption, which means Apple cannot see or access the data –

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.

Because Apple does not have a key, losing access to your account can mean losing your data altogether.

It also means law enforcement agencies have no way of accessing such data either.

The tool is independent of the protections for blue messages sent with iMessage, passwords stored in iCloud keychain, Health app data and Facetime, which are end to end encrypted by default.

Cyber Correspondent Joe Tidy explains how end to end encryption works

What does this mean for my iCloud data?

If you are in the *** and have not turned on ADP, you will not see a change to the way your data is protected as a result of Apple disabling it.

Your iCloud data will remain protected by standard encryption and, as before, can still be accessed by Apple.

But it does mean you now cannot apply to protect iCloud storage with end to end encryption, even if you want to.

Meanwhile, people in the *** who had ADP enabled prior to Friday’s change

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.

Apple has not said when, nor how many *** users will be affected.

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*** iPhone users have been met with a notice on the Advanced Data Protection settings page informing them the tool cannot be enabled.

Some experts have raised alarm over its removal, saying it will leave users less protected and also have wider, global consequences.

Graeme Stewart of cybersecurity firm Check Point said it would not mean “a complete free-for-all” as law enforcement must have a warrant to request iCloud data.

But he said other governments may look to replicate the ***’s demand of Apple for a so-called “*********” to encrypted cloud data.

Cybersecurity experts have likened the idea of creating a ********* to someone leaving their house keys under their doormat – essentially creating a vulnerability which anyone, including bad actors, can exploit.

Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation

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that if Apple had complied with the request, it would have created a ********* not just for *** users “but for people around the world, regardless of where they were or what citizenship they had”.

Apple told the BBC in a statement that it had “never built a ********* or master key to any of our products, and we never will”.

What protections do

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and Android offer?

Like Apple,

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it uses standard encryption across a range of its services to protect data as it moves between users’ devices, its services and data centres.

The search giant, which owns Android, has provided further protections for Android phone system back-ups

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.

It uses a mechanism that generates a random security key on a device, which is encrypted by a user’s lock-screen passcode, pattern or pin.

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says it cannot see this security key and that the passcode-protected information is sent securely to high security chips in its data centres.

But the same protections do not extend to

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Photos or content stored in

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Drive – which are not end to end encrypted.

It also has an

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for people who want further security for their account.

This relies on using passkeys to verify the account holder.

Some Samsung Galaxy smartphones also have “enhanced data protection” which encrypts back-ups of messages, call logs, apps and settings

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.

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