Apple Data Protection — The ugly truth

Rene Ritchie

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Up until now, Apple kept an encryption key for things like your personal photos and messages stored on their iCloud servers. That meant, if you ever forgot your passcode or otherwise locked yourself out, Apple could recover that data for you. But, side effect, that also meant a government could subpoena them, or a super-villain could theoretically break in and steal them.

Now, in the US, and in more places over the course of the next year, we’ll have the option to turn on Advanced Data Protection for iCloud. In other words, turn off Apple’s ability to access almost everything on iCloud. literally make them throw their key away. Then, just like our health data and passwords have been, our photos and messages will be utterly, completely locked down.

But should they be? Should we actually turn advanced data protection on?

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.