Uhm this is exactly why you only store already-encrypted data on remote servers
Lol. Some galaxy brains were ‘Oh my Apple would never roll over and simply do what they’re told! They’ll keep our data safe!’ and mad at me for saying exactly this was going to happen.
Well, huh, look at that. A corporation that rolled over faster than a well-trained golden retriever. Who would have guessed it.
So despite all the tough talk, they just roll over and capitulate. The only way to protest this is to move your stuff off Apple.
Apple’s choices here were:
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Do what they did, and remove the feature for the UK only
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Create a backdoor into their OS that can potentially be used by not just governments, but bad actors too, effectively crippling security for every single device they sell worldwide and bypassing the usefulness of on-device entirely.
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Exit the UK market, which is not realistic and would leave millions of UK customers without any further recourse than to replace their Apple devices, which is incredibly wasteful and expensive (not to mention inconvenient).
Apple chose the lesser evil. What more could you possibly expect in this situation? If you want to protest, protest this government demanding this level of surveillance on their citizens.
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This is why “privacy” doesn’t work on a closed system controlled by a third party.
….or a government demanding a way in.
Google or Facebook should stop using HTTPS there with a big red banner saying WE HAD TO DISABLE ENCRYPTION BECAUSE YOUR GOVERNMENT WANTS TO SEE WHAT YOU DO, THE SIDE EFFECT IS EVERYONE CAN SEE WHAT YOU DO
Apple said users who already had it turned on will be given a period of time to disable it in order to keep using their iCloud accounts, although the length of time was not stated.
I’m in the UK and have ADP enabled but I am yet to be informed by Apple when/if it will be disabled in the future. I’m glad we had a change in government but this is a serious misstep from Labour.
Start a petition, I’m sure people will sign it based on how serious this could be for security in general
When was the last time a petition achieved anything? Better off writing directly to your MP. Parliamentary petitions exist purely to allow MPs to ignore the problem as it’s easier to dismiss a few thousand signatures on a petition rather than a few thousand letters stacking up on their desks.
Both. Do both. Make it easier for them to address the issue than ignore you. Depending on which side of the aisle your MP is on, focus your letter on either “those evil <other side> are doing thus terrible thing, I know you’re bold enough to stand up to them.” or “this policy seems to have the following problems, and it’s leaving you open to attack from <other side>. It’d be a shame if you lost your position over it.”
