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Apple has stopped offering its end-to-end encrypted iCloud storage, Advanced Data Protection (ADP), to new users in the UK, and will require existing users to disable the feature at some point in the future. The move comes following reports earlier this month that UK security services requested Apple grant them backdoor access to worldwide users' encrypted backups. An Apple spokesperson Julien Trosdorf said in a statement to The Verge:

Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature. 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.

ADP works by protecting iCloud data with end-to-end encryption, meaning it can only be decrypted by the person who owns the iCloud account on their own devices. Removing ADP means that British users' files will be accessible to Apple, and shareable with law enforcement, though that would still require a warrant.

Some types of iCloud data are end-to-end encrypted by default, and will remain so even in the UK. This includes passwords, health data, payment information, and iMessage logs. iCloud file backups, photos, notes, and voice memos are among the data types that will no longer be encrypted.

Trosdorf tells The Verge that UK users will be given an amount of time to disable ADP to keep using their iCloud account, though the company has not said when the deadline will be.

Earlier this month The Washington Post reported that the UK Home Office, led by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, had demanded backdoor access to encrypted files uploaded not only by Brits, but by users worldwide. The company was reportedly served a document called a technical capability notice under the UK's Investigatory Powers Act of 2016. It was reported then that Apple was likely to disable its UK encryption instead of granting security services a backdoor, but that this might not placate the Labour government, which would still not be able to access encrypted files uploaded elsewhere in the world.

Apple is not the only tech company to offer end-to-end encrypted backups. Google has offered encrypted backups to Android users since 2018, and Meta also offers the option to encrypt WhatsApp backups. Both are currently still available in the UK. So does this mean that Google ansd Meta have opted to break the end to end encryption?

The Government's controversial 'disinformation' team is developing a secretive AI programme to trawl through social media looking for concerning posts it deems problematic.

Records show the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) recently awarded a £2.3 million contract to Faculty AI to build monitoring software which can search for foreign interference, detect deepfakes and analyse social media narratives.

DSIT claimed the new AI tool, called the Counter 'Disinformation' Data Platform (CDDP), is for the moment looking solely for posts which pose a threat to national security and public safety risk.

Heavily redacted documents obtained by Big Brother Watch through Freedom of Information requests show that the Government is reserving the right to also use the platform for other issues. An executive summary for the project states: While the CDDP has a current national security focus the tool has the ability to be pivoted to focus on any priority area.

The Washington Post reports:

Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud.

The British government's undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies. Its application would mark a significant defeat for tech companies in their decades-long battle to avoid being wielded as government tools against their users.

Rather than break the security promises it made to its users everywhere, Apple is likely to stop offering encrypted storage in the U.K., the people said. Yet that concession would not fulfill the U.K. demand for backdoor access to the service in other countries, including the United States.

The Home Office has served Apple with a document called a technical capability notice, ordering it to provide access under the sweeping U.K. Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, which authorizes law enforcement to compel assistance from companies when needed to collect evidence'

Apple can appeal the U.K. capability notice to a secret technical panel, which would consider arguments about the expense of the requirement, and to a judge who would weigh whether the request was in proportion to the government's needs. But the law does not permit Apple to delay complying during an appeal. Apple would also be barred from warning its users that its most advanced encryption no longer provided full security.

Meredith Whittaker, president of the nonprofit encrypted messenger Signal, said:

Using Technical Capability Notices to weaken encryption around the globe is a shocking move that will position the UK as a tech pariah, rather than a tech leader. If implemented, the directive will create a dangerous cybersecurity vulnerability in the nervous system of our global economy.

An article from computerweekly.com provides some interesting details about the secret technical panel which hears appeals about unviable technical capability notices. It is called the Technical Advisory Board (TAB) and is charged with reviewing secret legal orders given to internet communications companies to arrange surveillance of their users, and to copy their emails and files, or to monitor their calls and videos.

Enquiries by Computer Weekly this week revealed, astonishingly, that the Home Office had failed to renew the contracts for TAB members so maybe there is a little disarray there.