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.
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.
Previously, they refused US government demands for a backdoor that would allow them to unlock locked devices.
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 offer standard encryption by default, where they hold a copy of your encryption key and can assist you if you lose access to your key.
They also allow you to opt into advanced data protection, where they do not have a copy of your encryption key, so you need to be sure you protect it yourself.
If a company has a copy of the customer's encryption key on their server, you have no choice but to hand it over in response to a warrant, as we recently saw with Microsoft handing over the bitlocker key for a customer's computer.
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.
> UK backs down in Apple privacy row, US says
That makes it very nearly meaningless.
We've never had so many threats to our privacy and liberties heaved upon us, and the rate is accelerating.
> 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...