Apple announced on Friday that it has disabled its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature for iCloud users in the United Kingdom. This decision was made in response to a request from UK authorities seeking access to encrypted user data.

The Washington Post reported that UK security agencies asked Apple to provide access to encrypted iCloud data by bypassing the ADP feature. In response, Apple stated, "We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by Advanced Data Protection will not be available to our customers in the United Kingdom, given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy."

Users who previously enabled the feature will now be required to disable it, and new users can no longer activate Advanced Data Protection. Attempts to enable the feature display a message stating, "Apple is no longer able to offer Advanced Data Protection to new users in the United Kingdom."

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Apple noted its commitment to user privacy, stating, "As we have said many times before, we have never built a back door or master key to any of our products or services, and we never will."

While some data categories, including iCloud Keychain and Health data, will continue to be encrypted, other types of iCloud data will now be accessible to both Apple and UK authorities upon request.

Privacy advocates have warned about the risk of data misuse and heightened cyber threats. In response, many social media users are urging others to disable iCloud settings to safeguard their personal information.

Go to your iCloud settings and turn everything off. I don’t care about pics as I don’t have dodgy ones on there. Learned that lesson years ago. Don’t store any passwords on there.!!! It’s Jo longer safe after Apple has turned off ADP advanced data protection for UK users… pic.twitter.com/KbmbokVrbI

— leilani dowding 🌸🚜 ☮️ (@LeilaniDowding) February 21, 2025

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