Comment by echelon
1 day ago
In the US. Apple's policies are flexible when it comes to other nation states.
All it takes is a political sea change for E2EE to go away.
Apple already has to hand over a wealth of information when asked by the feds.
1 day ago
In the US. Apple's policies are flexible when it comes to other nation states.
All it takes is a political sea change for E2EE to go away.
Apple already has to hand over a wealth of information when asked by the feds.
Apple literally removed encrypted file storage as a feature in the UK rather than comply with demands for access to encrypted customer data from the UK government.
Previously, they refused US government demands for a backdoor that would allow them to unlock locked devices.
> Apple literally removed encrypted file storage as a feature in the UK rather than comply with demands for access to encrypted customer data from the UK government.
Does that mean that instead of UK government accessing the data (through a backdoor), UK government can now access to data (because it's not encrypted at all)?
They removed a specific (non-default) feature which provided end to end encryption rather than build a backdoor. They continue to offer encrypted backups etc. although they hold the keys. So not great but also not a backdoor that breaks encryption for everyone and can potential be accessed without legal oversight.
1 reply →
Nope.
After Apple's announcement that they would remove encryption from UK users rather than weaken it, the bad press and public pressure forced the UK government to back down.
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"Things might change in the future" is a perfectly general statement which applies to any state of affairs which is not restricted by natural law.
That makes it very nearly meaningless.
Maybe, weren't it for the fact that we're having age verification and IDV ("protect the kids"), hardware attestation, removal of 3rd party APKs, etc. heaved upon us.
We've never had so many threats to our privacy and liberties heaved upon us, and the rate is accelerating.
Apple certainly lobbied against this stupidity.
> Cook conveyed to lawmakers that device-level age assurance proposals should not require the collection of sensitive data like birth certificate or social security number, and that parents should be trusted to provide the age of a child when creating a child's account. Any data used for determining age should not be kept by app stores or developers, according to Apple.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/12/10/tim-cook-age-verificati...
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