From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

The decision was otherwise roundly condemned on X as “horrific,” “horrendous,” the hallmark of a “dictatorship,” and even “the biggest breach of privacy Western civilization has ever seen.”

Apple pulled its Advanced Data Protection tool in the UK after the British government ordered the company to give it access to user data around the world.

Apple Store on New York’s Fifth Avenue.

Apple pulled its highest-level security feature in the U.K. after the government ordered the company to give it access to user data.

The U.K. government demanded “blanket access” to all user accounts around the world rather than to specific ones, a move unprecedented in major democracies, according to The Washington Post.

The security tool at issue in the U.K. is Advanced Data Protection (ADP), which provides end-to-end encryption so that only owners of particular data – and reportedly not even Apple – can access it.

“Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature,” an Apple spokesman said.

According to Apple, the removal of ADP will not affect iCloud data types that are end-to-end encrypted by default such as iMessage and FaceTime.

The nine iCloud categories that will reportedly no longer have ADP protection are iCloud Backup, iCloud Drive, Photos, Notes, Reminders, Safari Bookmarks, Siri Shortcuts, Voice Memos, Wallet Passes, and Freeform.

These types of data will be covered only by standard data protection, the default setting for accounts.

Journalist and Twitter Files whistleblower Michael Schellenberger slammed the U.K.-initiated move as “totalitarian.”

The decision was otherwise roundly condemned on X as “horrific,” “horrendous,” the hallmark of a “dictatorship,” and even “the biggest breach of privacy Western civilization has ever seen.”

Elon Musk declared Friday that such a privacy breach “would have happened in America” if President Donald Trump had not been elected.

 

Jake Moore, global cybersecurity adviser at ESET, commented that the move marks “a huge step backwards in the protection of privacy online.”

“Creating a backdoor for ethical reasons means it will inevitably only be a matter of time before threat actors also find a way in,” Moore said.

Britain reportedly made the privacy invasion demand under the authority of the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016.

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  MxM News

Quick Hit:

Seventy Christians were brutally murdered by jihadists affiliated with ISIS in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The victims were forced into a Protestant church and beheaded, marking one of the deadliest attacks on Christians in the region.

Key Details:

• The attack occurred on February 13 in the town of Kasanga, where members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), linked to ISIS, rounded up villagers and executed them inside a Protestant church.
• Open Doors UK, a human rights organization, reported that the ADF targeted 70 Christian villages, leaving families too terrified to bury their dead for a week.
• The international community has largely ignored the atrocity, with few public statements condemning the violence, except from Hungary’s State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians, Tristan Azbej.

Diving Deeper:

Open Doors UK revealed that the massacre took place when the ADF militants surrounded the village of Maybe, forcibly removing residents from their homes. The 70 Christian villagers were herded into an abandoned Protestant church in Kasanga and systematically executed by beheading. The church had been previously deserted due to escalating security threats in the area.

The ADF, an Islamist militant group linked to ISIS, has been responsible for numerous violent attacks across northeastern DRC. Their objective is to overthrow the governments of the DRC and Uganda to establish a caliphate, similar to the one ISIS formed in Syria and Iraq. The group has intensified its activities in the mineral-rich North Kivu province, killing at least 200 people in the past month alone.

The aftermath of the attack has left surviving Christians in fear, prompting many to flee the region. A church elder from CECA-20, the Evangelical Community in Central Africa, expressed despair, stating, “We don’t know what to do or how to pray. We’ve had enough of massacres. May God’s will alone be done.”

Open Doors UK strongly condemned the attack, urging governments and international organizations to prioritize civilian protection in eastern DRC. Despite the magnitude of the atrocity, international media coverage has been minimal. Social media users have criticized the lack of global attention to the incident.

Hungary’s State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians, Tristan Azbej, was one of the few international figures to respond publicly. He expressed horror at the killings, calling the victims “Christian martyrs” and emphasizing the need for global recognition and action against Christian persecution.

The violence underscores the ongoing security crisis in the DRC, where numerous militant groups, including the ADF, continue to vie for control over the region’s valuable mineral resources. As the humanitarian situation worsens, the international community faces growing pressure to respond to the escalating persecution of Christians in the region.