Apple has reportedly announced that it intends to expand end-to-end encryption of iCloud data to include backups, photos, notes, chat histories and other services.
The FBI maintains that it “continues to be deeply concerned with the threat end-to-end and user-only-access encryption pose.”
Among a handful of new security tools is a feature called Advanced Data Protection which will allow users to keep certain data more secure from hackers, governments and spies, even in the case of an Apple data breach, as per Samantha Kelly.
Similarly, Kelly notes, “law enforcement would not be able to gain access to that data even with a warrant. With end-to-end encryption, not even the platform can access the data, only the sender and recipient.”
The company has clashed with law enforcement agencies in the past over “attempts to access data on devices, including an effort by the FBI to break into the iPhone of one of the shooters behind the 2015 attack in San Bernardino, California.”
“In recent years, Apple has increasingly made privacy a core pillar of its pitch to users through a mix of new tools, including a feature designed to protect journalists and human rights workers from spyware,” Kelly writes.
Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, reiterated that: “some of the steps the company took over a decade ago in designing iCloud and the way it encrypts its data were necessary precursors to build toward this moment.”
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Matthew Green believes Apple’s increased effort will set a standard for others to increase encryption.
The cryptographer and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute said: “Why is this a big deal? Because Apple sets the standard on what secure (consumer) cloud backup looks like,” Green said in a series of tweets on Wednesday. “Even as an opt-in feature, this move will have repercussions all over the industry as competitors chase them.”
