Apple Disables Security Feature for UK After Government Demands Backdoor to Spy on Users Worldwide
Apple is taking the unprecedented step of removing its highest level data security tool from customers in the UK after the government demanded backdoor access to user data worldwide. The demand was called an “unprecedented attack” on privacy by security experts.
BBC News reports that Apple has decided to disable its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature for users in the UK. The decision comes on the heels of a demand from the UK government for access to user data stored on Apple’s iCloud service. ADP provides end-to-end encryption, ensuring that only account holders can view their stored photos, documents, and other sensitive information.
Earlier this month, the UK government invoked the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) to compel Apple to provide access to user data. The tech giant has consistently opposed creating a “backdoor” in its encryption service, arguing that doing so would compromise the security of all users. Despite this stance, Apple has now chosen to remove the option for UK customers to activate ADP.
As of Friday, any Apple user in the UK attempting to enable the feature is met with an error message. Existing ADP users will have their access disabled at a later date. The number of affected customers remains unknown, as ADP was only made available to British Apple users in December 2022.
Professor Alan Woodward, a cyber-security expert at Surrey University, described the development as “very disappointing” and an “act of self-harm” by the government. He stated, “All the UK government has achieved is to weaken online security and privacy for UK based users. It was naïve of the UK government to think they could tell a US technology company what to do globally.”
The move has also drawn criticism from privacy campaigners, who have called it an “unprecedented attack” on individuals’ private data. In the United States, two senior politicians have suggested that the threat to American national security is so severe that the US government should re-evaluate its intelligence-sharing agreements with the UK unless the demand is withdrawn.
Apple expressed its disappointment in a statement, saying, “Enhancing the security of cloud storage with end-to-end-encryption is more urgent than ever before. Apple remains committed to offering our users the highest level of security for their personal data and are hopeful that we will be able to do so in future in the UK.”
The row comes amidst growing pushback from the U.S. against regulations imposed on its tech sector by other countries. In a recent speech, U.S. Vice President JD Vance made it clear that the U.S. is increasingly concerned about foreign governments “tightening the screws” on U.S. tech companies with international footprints.
Read more at BBC News here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
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OPEN.SPOTIFY.COMHappy Birthday TomHappy Birthday · Song with the First Name, Vol. 12 · Song · 2015
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No one has a grasp how much this one change warped society.
Blue-rich LEDs got dumped on everyone at once. Not a niche gadget. Streetlights, offices, kitchens, bedrooms, phones, TVs.
That spectrum is a sledgehammer to melatonin and the circadian clock.
Smash that, and hormones go with it
.Women’s cycles losing the old lunar timing.
Male hormones getting scrambled.
A chunk of the obesity wave.
Kids who can’t sit still, sleep, or regulate themselves.
People told all the dissenting voices to be quiet and save the planet.
Disrupting humans this much is a huge issue, and it’s everywhere.
That’s the lighting environment we built.
All so a few people could sell "cleaner" bulbs and wrap it in “sustainability.”
One of the great quiet crimes of our time: we replaced night with warehouse light and pretended biology wouldn’t notice.
XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
