Apple Inc on Wednesday said that it is beefing up defense of data that users store in the cloud, a move that could thwart authorities as well as hackers.
The iPhone maker’s Advanced Data Protection plan extends something called end-to-end encryption beyond its iMessage service to photographs and other data backed up to its iCloud storage service.
Apple said the move was urgent given an alarming increase in data breaches that had seen 1.1 billion personal records exposed across the globe last year, according to company research.
Photo: Reuters
“Advanced Data Protection is Apple’s highest level of cloud data security,” said Ivan Krstic, Apple’s head of security engineering and architecture.
It gives “users the choice to protect the vast majority of their most sensitive iCloud data with end-to-end encryption so that it can only be decrypted on their trusted devices,” he added.
Apple told the Wall Street Journal that with the heightened security, it would no longer be able to hand over iMessage history and other files, even when legally requested to do so by investigators.
The move would potentially rekindle a long period of standoffs involving technology firms and law enforcement.
Apple notably resisted a legal effort to weaken iPhone encryption to allow authorities to read messages from a suspect in a 2015 bombing in San Bernardino, California.
Police officials worldwide say encryption can protect criminals, terrorists and pornographers even when authorities have a legal warrant for an investigation.
However, civil rights and privacy advocates, along with cybersecurity professionals, advocate encrypting data to protect against wrongful snooping by authorities as well as hackers.
“We constantly identify and mitigate emerging threats to [user] personal data on device and in the cloud,” Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi said in a post.
Under the new setting, Apple said only iCloud Mail, Contacts and Calendar would remain unencrypted because of the need to operate with other systems.
The new level of security would be available in the US by the end of this month and be rolled out globally next year, the company said.
Apple has championed data privacy as a way to differentiate itself from tech giants Meta Platforms Inc and Google, which closely track online activity by users to boost advertising revenue.
Separately, Google yesterday said that it would merge teams working on mapping service Waze and products like Google Maps, effective today, in a bid to consolidate processes.
The Alphabet Inc-owned company would integrate Waze, which it acquired in 2013 for US$1 billion, into Google Geo, its portfolio of real-world mapping products that include Google Maps, Google Earth and Street View, a Google spokesperson said.
Waze CEO Neha Parikh would exit the company following a transition period, Google said, adding that Waze would continue to be a standalone app, with about 151 million monthly active users worldwide.
“By bringing the Waze team into Geo’s portfolio of real-world mapping products, the teams will benefit from further increased technical collaboration,” the spokesperson said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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