Aral Balkan

If you’re in the UK, cancel your iCloud subscription.

(Or the government will have access to all your data. Just like how things work in China.)

Your best bet is to take offline backups yourself as any cloud service provider that does business in the UK will have to either do the same or leave the market.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgj54eq4vejo

PS. This is why we left the UK ten years ago. So we could on our own terms and wouldn’t have to do so later on. https://ar.al/notes/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish/

#UK #surveillance #Apple #icloud https://mastodon.social/@vascorsd/114042733377696746

Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

Customers' photos and documents stored online will no longer be protected by end-to-end encryption.

Feb 21, 2025 at 4:15pmWeb
Show threadChildless Bambino Feb 21, 2025

@aral Apple's definition of courage is removing a headphone jack. My definition of courage is living your life as someone that has gone through HRT and realising you didn't need anyone else's acceptance to exist.

Consigned by a cis Black Guy

Show threadBastian Greshake TzovarasFeb 21, 2025
@aral yep, left the UK last year while being able to do so on our own time & terms.
Show threadJayne 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈Feb 21, 2025

@aral

That will be my iCloud subscription cancelled 🤦

Show threadKhleedrilFeb 21, 2025
@aral Be in no two minds about it: Britain has been Digital China more than China has for the last 50 years at least. We are the most surveiled state.
Show threadDavid PeachFeb 21, 2025
what are your thoughts on Proton drive? I currently use them for backups.
Show threadAdamFeb 22, 2025

@aral

Re: "If you’re in the UK, cancel your iCloud subscription."

Surely even if you're not in the UK you should cancel your iCloud subscription. The government ordered a backdoor to iCloud accounts worldwide. The B.B.C. article even says "It is not clear that Apple's actions will fully address those concerns, as the IPA order applies worldwide and ADP will continue to operate in other countries"

Show threadSumocat 🐈‍⬛Feb 22, 2025
@adamsaidsomething @aral Thank you. Everyone made such a big deal over this very important fact a few weeks ago, and totally forgot it today. Turning off ADP in the UK doesn’t fulfill the order. Maybe it’ll be good enough. We don’t know.
Show threadAral BalkanFeb 22, 2025
@adamsaidsomething The way they’ve complied doesn’t warrant that (no pun intended) at the moment. Then again, who knows what they’ll do next and who knows what other countries will now demand after this precedent.
Show threadAdamFeb 22, 2025

@aral

We can only rely on whistleblowers to know what they'll do next (tho we can make some pretty good guesses) since these things come with strict gag orders

Show threadJason Anthony GuyFeb 22, 2025

@aral @vascorsd The government *already* had access to your iCloud data, in or out of the UK, unless you had ADP enabled.

Pulling it from the UK didn’t change that, except on the edges for those who had it enabled (or would have done so).

ADP is a massive privacy improvement, but most customers aren't using it and were (and remain) vulnerable to spying.

This is an effective return to the status quo from before ADP was introduced in Dec. 2019.

And naturally, Apple won't leave this market.…

Show threadAral BalkanFeb 22, 2025
@JasonAnthonyGuy @vascorsd Naturally, under capitalism. Which is anything but natural.
Show threadEric LawtonFeb 22, 2025

@aral

I suspect Trump will be taking notice of this. Will the US be far behind?

@hannu_ikonen