We live in dangerous times. As is being widely reported, Apple is being forced to add a backdoor to iCloud, which opens up access to all your iPhone, iPad content backed up to iCloud, whether it’s end-to-end encrypted or not. And according to reports, the iMaker is not even allowed to let you know this is being done or your security has changed. As EFF warns, the demand for “Apple to break encryption is an emergency for us all.”
You can read all about the implications of this proposed change here.
Apple’s excellent Advanced Data Protection (APD) is central to this new furor. This applies end-to-end encryption to almost all the sensitive data on your iPhone, including your iCloud drive, photos, messaging and more. It removes previous loopholes, where Apple had access to the encryption keys to unlock your messages, by way of example.
This high-risk mandate comes courtesy of the UK government, which has issued a so-called “technical capability notice,” demanding Apple add a backdoor to iCloud for UK intelligence and law enforcement to tap into fully encrypted content.
Speculation as to what will happen next includes removing end-to-end iCloud encryption from UK accounts or an appeal and fightback. According to reports, though, Apple can’t await the results of an appeal before making changes and the changes must apply to all iCloud users, not just those in the UK, negating the first option as well.
What you can do is demonstrate the importance of fully encrypted content to protect your own data. APD comes with some health warnings, primarily that if you lose your backup key or control of your trusted devices you will also lose your data. By its very nature Apple can’t unlock this for you — that’s kind of the point.
Apple’s instructions set out how to add ADP to your account and the device-by-device requirement to ensure all will be able to access your iCloud data once ADP is enabled.
Here are the requirements:
- An Apple Account with 2FA enabled.
- A passcode or password set on all your devices.
- An account recovery contact or recovery key, which you can set up durting the ADP enablement process.
- iOS/iPadOS 16.2 or newer, macOS 13.1 or newer, watchOS 9.2 or newer
With that done, here’s how you enable ADP:
“On iPhone or 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.
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.”
It won’t protect you if Apple does make changes, but we don’t know much for sure yet; at the very least it makes the right statement that this is critical to millions of users.
