A new UK law may force Apple to shut down Facetime and IMessage

Apple refuses to budge on encryption

The UK may introduce a new law on online security, which has led to protests from Apple, among others.

The heightened tone concerns a revision of the UK’s Investigative Powers Act from 2016. The revision is called the Online Security Act, and as the bill now appears, it includes, among other things, that authorities be able to demand that security functions be turned off without notifying users. As more and more messaging services offer what’s called “end-to-end encryption” or E2EE, this means that messaging service providers will have to change security by removing E2EE (since even the provider can’t read what’s being sent) or creating backdoors that bypass the security.

He owns a number of messaging service providers, including Apple and Signal protest against this. Apple goes a step further and says it won’t make changes to country-specific security features that would impair a product for all users globally. Instead, Apple says it will shut down services like Imessage and Facetime in the UK if the law takes effect.