Confidentiality and security have been central themes for Apple for years now, and the company considers itself a market leader to ensure that your data is protected from prying eyes. Although encryption and confidentiality are important problems for many technological companies, Apple has gone much further than most to ensure that your data is only accessible YouUnless you say the opposite explicitly.
A new secret government order in the United Kingdom seeks to destroy absolutely this for each user of Apple in the world. This is true: more than 2 billion Apple users in the world would have their confidentiality and their security erased by an uncompromising order from the British government.
The Washington Post was overthrown by the initiates on the prescription, published last month, at the office of the secretary in the interior. Called a “technical capacity opinion” and calling for the powers granted to the office by the law on the powers of the 2016 British survey, the British government has secretly ordered Apple to “create a rear door allowing it to recover all the content that any user of Apple has downloaded from the cloud”, according to the post.
What the British government is asking is the possibility of accessing the encrypted cloud data For Each Apple user in the world. That is to say frankly a comic authoritarian and draconian order and far beyond the jurisdiction of any individual government.
According to Washington Post sources, Apple may appeal the decision to a technical advice, but it is not authorized to delay compliance during the current appeal. Consequently, the company is likely to stop offering encrypted cloud storage in the United Kingdom (a huge problem in itself) or to delete other iCloud services. But even these extreme measures would not meet the requirements transmitted by the British government.
As bad as the order is, it is just as worrying as it was made in secret and that Apple is legally prohibited to recognize even that it has received the order. The law makes it a criminal offense to even reveal He received such an order.
Encryption integrated into each iCloud account is in danger due to the new rule of the United Kingdom.
Apple
What is at stake
By default, many Apple Cloud services are encrypted, but they are encrypted in transit and on the server, so Apple has the encryption key. Photos, notes, reminders, iCloud mail and calendar contacts are examples of this data that Apple can decrypt. The company has done so many times in the past when it has issued a legal order from the police.
However, health data, home data, iCloud messages and other types of data are end -to -end encrypted, with the encryption key stored on your Apple device and locked on your access code or biometric (front ID and key identifier). Apple has no way to decipher this data even if it wanted.
In 2022, Apple began to offer the advanced data protection option, which provides end -to -end encryption to almost all Apple Cloud services. If you are activated (access Settings> Your account> iCloud And look for it Advanced data protection Option), only letters, contacts and iCloud calendars will be stored encrypted with the key in Apple's hands.
Apple has an assistance document with a table showing which data is encrypted from start to finish and at which Apple has the key, for standard and advanced data protection parameters.
The British rule essentially requires that all the data that Apple stores for its cloud services be recoverable not only by Apple, but by the British government – no longer require a legal process to request that Apple provides targeted data – and for that apply Each Apple user in the world.
Of course, if a government has access to a back door to your data, it is only a matter of time before the stolen door escapes the limits of a government agency and is in the hands of external agencies, governments , criminals or even sold on the black market. It is far too precious to believe that it would remain confined to a security agency in the United Kingdom and that they would only use it sparingly and when they are absolutely necessary.
In short, there is no “secure rear door”.
Face, if it is fully respected, the safety of cloud storage for each Apple user worldwide (estimated at around 2.2 billion) would not only be decreased but fundamentally nonexistent. A less strict interpretation can allow Apple to get away with only the confidentiality of its users in the United Kingdom, or interrupt the precious and popular cloud services for all.
What is not At risk, our understanding of the relationships on this question, is the sacredness of your Apple devices themselves and their storage. The order apparently only applies cloud The data and do not require a steak door to access your iPhone, iPad, Mac or any other device or stored data locally.
The apple is certainly not the only recipient of such an order. Google’s encrypted backups for Android phones, WhatsApp's encrypted messaging data and other similar cloud services are so important or more important objectives for the British government. Again, if these companies have obtained the order to make these data encrypted accessible to the British government, and they have respected it or not, it would be a criminal offense to make it known. We are at the mercy of the Reports and the leaks to find out if our private life is secretly, on a global scale, raped.
