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Apple has taken the unprecedented step of disabling its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature for UK users after the British government invoked surveillance laws to demand access to encrypted iCloud data.
The move, effective on 21 February 2025, marks the first time Apple has withdrawn a security tool from a specific market in response to regulatory pressure.
ADP, which enables end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for iCloud backups, photos, and notes, has been available to UK customers since December 2022 as an opt-in service.
ADP employs elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) with Curve25519 algorithms to secure data transmission and storage, ensuring only device owners hold decryption keys.
Without ADP, iCloud data remains protected by standard AES-256 encryption but becomes accessible to Apple under legal warrants. The change manifests through error code “ADP-UK403” when UK users attempt to enable the feature post-15:00 GMT on 21 February.
According to Apple’s Xcode…
