CUPERTINO: Apple is dropping its most advan­ced, end-to-end security encryption feature for cloud data in the UK, the company said on Friday in an unprecedented move after reports that the government demanded a backdoor for user data access.

Advanced Data Protec­tion, an optional feature that adds end-to-end encryption for security across a wide range of user data, is no longer available in the UK for new users and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature, Apple said.

Governments routinely ask technology companies for user data to crack criminal cases, but Britain’s demand, issued last month, is seen as particularly sweeping.

Britain issues such not­ices under its Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, which combined various existing powers on intercepting and obtaining communications. While security officials say data encryption features make it harder to catch criminals, tech companies have long guarded their users’ right to privacy.

“We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy,” the company said in a statement.

Britain had ordered Apple to give it unprecedentedly broad access to encrypted user data stored on Apple’s data cloud, the Washington Post newspaper reported earlier in February.

“We do not comment on operational matters, inclu­d­ing for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices,” a spokesperson for Britain’s interior ministry, or Home Office, said.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2025