According to a technology story by the BBC, Apple customers can utilize what is known as Advanced Data Protection. That opt-in security feature is what keeps a person’s photos and texts private, which even Apple can’t access, but the UK government demanded the right to see it all --- and Apple caved.
The United Kingdom originally demanded Apple put in a backdoor to all the data storage in every country around the world. Apple refused to do that but it did agree to lift the data protection feature.
With the ADP feature gone for British citizens, the British government now has the ability to track every citizen’s social media account and their private data in a nation already infamous for bobbies arresting you for a mean Facebook post.
Reacting to that news back in the United States, radio talk host Richard Randall says that's not what Apple customers agreed to when they bought the technology. And now the entire nation, 68 million people, he says, are being spied on by their own government that demanded the right to do so.
“Now people can no longer expect that they have any privacy on their own device that they pay good money for,” he warns.
Great Britain’s demand to surveil its citizens comes at the same time Europe’s top politicians were lectured by Vice President J.D. Vance about a loss of freedom of speech. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference (pictured below), Vance likened the clampdown on speech and right-wing political parties to Communism under former Soviet Union. He also scolded the UK for arresting a pro-life demonstrator, Adam Smith-Connor, whose crime was praying outside an abortion clinic within the restricted zone.
Back in August, when riots broke out over three fatal stabbings, London’s police chief threatened to extradite foreigners, including American citizens, for making online posts that spread rumors and misinformation.
According to the BBC article, Vice President Vance was also aware of the Apple controversy in Great Britain when he spoke at an AI Action Summit, which was held in Paris. “The Trump administration is troubled by reports that some foreign governments are considering tightening the screws on U.S. tech companies with international footprints," Vance told the gathering.
