Apple has elected to remove its most advanced, end-to-end encrypted security feature for cloud data in the United Kingdom after the government ordered the company to build a backdoor for accessing customer data. On Friday, Apple announced that Advanced Data Protection, a stronger form of end-to-end encryption used on a wide variety of user data, is no longer available in the UK for new users. This affects iCloud data storage, device backups, web bookmarks, voice memos, notes, photos, reminders and text message backups, Bloomberg reports. “We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy,” Apple said in a statement. “ADP protects iCloud data with end-to-end encryption, which means the data can only be decrypted by the user who owns it, and only on their trusted devices.” Two weeks ago reports surfaced that the UK government had ordered Apple to build a backdoor into customer data globally – which Apple said was “unprecedented overreach by the government,” which the company said meant that “the UK could attempt to secretly veto new user protections globally preventing us from ever offering them to customers.” I actually wrote […]