There’s never too much security, and that’s why Apple has launched three new features to improve its services

Apple surprises us a lot this week of festive bridges. Not with big news but with lesser surprises, which is still good news after all. Yesterday we saw the presentation of Apple Music Sing and the new App Store prices, and today we have news about the security of our data and our accounts.

All of these developments are aimed at improving our privacy and security, providing device-to-device encryption to parts of systems that did not already have it. Everything came out in the new beta of iOS 16.2 and the rest of the equivalent versions of the other operating systems, which indicates that we should be able to use it publicly with the launch of the stable versions.

Identity verification, physical devices and everything absolutely encrypted

Device-to-device encryption options now extend to iCloud Drive, Notes, Photos, Reminders, Voice Memos, Safari Bookmarks, Siri Shortcuts, and Wallet app credits and tickets, as well as to device backups and message copies. All of this can be enabled in a new option called ‘Advanced data protection‘ which will be accessible to all users.

Another option is the identity verification in iMessagewhich will allow us to confirm that we are talking to the right person in the service via an encrypted device certification process.

For those who deem it necessary, Apple will also allow the authentication of our Apple ID with a physical device. In other words, being able to demand something like a USB key USB to be able to connect with our credentials. In highly secure work environments, this is common practice and you can always use a recovery key that you generate to be able to log in if you don’t have the physical device handy.

Apple also mentions some parts of its services that cannot have device-to-device encryption due to “legacy” incompatibilities. These are iCloud Mail, Contacts, and Calendar.

For now, these options will be available to users in the United States, with others having to wait until “early 2023“. These are perhaps measures that the general user considers excessive, but it is very good news that we have the possibility of activating them and more than one will decide to do so.