Joe Rogan has expressed his outrage at Apple’s recent decision to disable its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature for UK users, effectively ending an additional layer of end-to-end encryption for new users. This move followed a request from the UK government for backdoor access to user data, which Apple rejected.
“This is insanely fucked up, but the question is did @Google do the same thing with Android? RCS texts are encrypted, but does the UK government have the same access to Android phones? If not, it’s a great motivation to switch platforms,” the popular podcaster said in a post on X.
Elon Musk chimed in, saying, “Good question”
What is Advanced Data Protection – the encryption in question
Apple last week took a significant step of disabling its one of the strongest encryption features, Advanced Data Protection (ADP), for new users in the UK. ADP is an optional feature providing end-to-end encryption for various iCloud data, adding extra security for sensitive information like device backups, photos, messages, and more.
Apple said that it was gravely disappointed with the situation and emphasised the rising threat of data breaches and the importance of user privacy.
“We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy. ADP protects iCloud data with end-to-end encryption, which means the data can only be decrypted by the user who owns it, and only on their trusted devices,” the company said.
Google responds to Rogan’s question
In a response, Google said that backups created by Android phones are encrypted and no one can access them except the users.
“Android backups are encrypted and no one can access them except you; it’s been that way since 2018,” a post by News From Google handle said.
“Devices can take advantage of a new capability where backed-up application data can only be decrypted by a key that is randomly generated at the client. This decryption key is encrypted using the user’s lockscreen PIN/pattern/passcode, which isn’t known by Google,” the company’s post said.
This response seemingly satisfied Rogan, who publicly thanked Google for the clarification and also prompted a response from Musk.
“Thank you for the clarification!,” he said.