President Trump likens UK’s demand for Apple to kill iCloud encryption to Chinese monitoring

With Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, users have the choice to further protect important iCloud data even in the case of a data breach.
Apple announced on February 21 that it is discontinuing its most robust end-to-end encryption feature for iCloud data, Advanced Data Protection, in the UK — an unprecedented decision prompted by government demands for access to user data. President Trump has now compared the UK’s demand for Apple to kill iCloud encryption to Chinese Communist Party monitoring of Chinese citizens.
This optional feature, which applies end-to-end encryption to a broad array of user information, will no longer be offered to new UK users, and existing users in the region will eventually be required to turn it off, according to Apple.
Reuters:
‎

U.S. President Donald Trump likened the UK government’s demand that Apple grant it access to some user data as “something that you hear about with China,” in an interview with The Spectator political magazine published Friday.
Trump said that he had told British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that he “can’t do this”, referring to the request for access to data. The two met at the White House on Thursday for the first time since the U.S. leader took office, discussing Ukraine and negotiating a bilateral trade agreement.
“We actually told him [Starmer]… that’s incredible. That’s something, you know, that you hear about with China,” Trump said in his first magazine interview of his second term with the magazine’s editor-at-large Ben Domenech.

‎
MacDailyNews Take: Last week, in a February 25th letter to two U.S. lawmakers, Tulsi Gabbard, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, said the U.S. is examining whether the UK government had violated the CLOUD Act, which bars it from issuing demands for the data of U.S. citizens and vice versa.
“My lawyers are working to provide a legal opinion on the implications of the reported U.K. demands against Apple on the bilateral CLOUD Act agreement,” Gabbard wrote to U.S. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Rep. Andy Biggs, an Arizona Republican. “Upon initial review of the U.S. and U.K. bilateral CLOUD Act Agreement, the United Kingdom may not issue demands for data of U.S. citizens, nationals, or lawful permanent residents (“U.S. persons”), nor is it authorized to demand the data of persons located inside the United States.”
It’s not enough that every Brit alive has a government camera shoved up their ass 24/7/365? The UK has already slipped far down the slope that they ought to rename the place Airstrip One. – MacDailyNews, November 3, 2015
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin
The current batshit insane “leadership” of Airstrip One is having yet another crisis of confidence. – MacDailyNews, February 7, 2025
Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. – Potter Stewart
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s Advanced Data Protection for iCloud is an optional setting that offers Apple’s highest level of cloud data security. If you choose to enable Advanced Data Protection, the majority of your iCloud data — including iCloud Backup, Photos, Notes, and more — is protected using end-to-end encryption. No one else can access your end-to-end encrypted data, not even Apple, and this data remains secure even in the case of a data breach in the cloud.
How to turn on Advanced Data Protection for iCloud
On Mac

Choose Apple menu  > System Settings.
Click your name, then click iCloud.
Click Advanced Data Protection, then click Turn On.
Follow the onscreen instructions to review your recovery methods and enable Advanced Data Protection.

On iPhone and iPad

Open the Settings app.
Tap your name, then tap iCloud.
Scroll down, tap Advanced Data Protection, then tap Turn on Advanced Data Protection.
Follow the onscreen instructions to review your recovery methods and enable Advanced Data Protection.

More info about Apple’s Advanced Data Protection for iCloud here.

‎
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post President Trump likens UK’s demand for Apple to kill iCloud encryption to Chinese monitoring appeared first on MacDailyNews.