Apple just turned off a security feature for every user in the UK. Not because it was broken. Because the UK government demanded a backdoor into encrypted user data, and Apple refused to build one.

Rather than compromise their encryption for everyone, Apple pulled the feature entirely. Their call. Their choice.

In 2022, Apple rolled out Advanced Data Protection - an optional feature that gave users true end-to-end encryption for iCloud backups, photos, and notes. The kind where even Apple can't see your stuff. They don't hold the keys. You do.

Only about 10% of users ever turned it on. But that was enough to make governments nervous.

In December 2024, the UK issued a secret order demanding Apple provide "blanket capability" to access encrypted iCloud data. Not for specific accounts or investigations - for any Apple user, anywhere in the world. American citizens, German citizens, Japanese citizens. Anyone with an iPhone.

Apple refused. In February 2025, they disabled Advanced Data Protection for all UK users instead.

AES-256 encryption is mathematically unbreakable. Cracking it through brute force would take longer than the age of the universe. So when governments talk about "lawful access," they're not proposing to break the math. They're proposing to compromise how it's implemented.

Its nowhere near unheard of, it's been done before many times. TETRA radios used by European police and military had encryption deliberately weakened from 128-bit to 56-bit keys, making it exponentially easier to crack. Skype had a backdoor that let them hand decrypted messages to the NSA. The NSA paid RSA Security $10 million to use a compromised random number generator as the default in their products.

So it doesn't matter if it's intended only for law enforcement, any backdoor that exists can be found and exploited.

After Chinese hackers breached multiple US telecom companies in the Salt Typhoon attack, CISA recommended that government officials use only end-to-end encrypted communications. The same agencies demanding backdoors are telling their own people to use unbreakable encryption

We cover the four ways governments try to compromise encryption, the real history of backdoors that have already been exploited, and what you can do to protect yourself.

[Listen now → HERE ]