Readers might recall the tech giant’s fight with the FBI over the San Bernadino shooter’s encrypted iPhone data, during which the agency attempted to force Apple through the courts to unlock a protected iPhone. Prior to the rollout of Advanced Data Protection, iCloud users couldn’t prevent Apple from pouring through the contents of device backups, including text messages and contacts, if it chose to do so. (For the uninitiated, encryption keys are the random strings of bits specifically generated to scramble and unscramble data.) Once the feature is enabled, Apple servers can’t modify certain iCloud settings on behalf of users or access data stored in iCloud backups, Photos, Notes and CloudKit fields that third-party developers opt to mark as encrypted. iPhones and Macs) sole access to the encryption keys for the bulk of their data. users by the end of the year (with the rest of the world to follow in 2023), Advanced Data Protection gives iCloud users’ trusted devices (e.g. for members of the Apple Beta Software Program and coming to all U.S. Concretely, Advanced Data Protection would keep most of an iCloud account’s data secure even in the event that Apple was hacked, and - as a Wall Street Journal piece notes - would prevent Apple from accessing iCloud phone backups in response to law enforcement requests.Ĭurrently available in the U.S.

Apple today launched Advanced Data Protection, a new, optional end-to-end encryption scheme that prevents data in a customer’s iCloud from being decrypted on an “untrusted” device.

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