Last month, Apple decided to stop offering its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature to new customers in the UK, and customers who opted in for the service in the past will stop enjoying it soon. Without ADP, users’ photos and documents stored in Apple’s cloud won’t be protected with end-to-end encryption. Until now, only users could access this data, but in the future, Apple and other third parties, including malicious ones, will be able to do so. This decision came as a response to the UK government’s request to Apple to grant access to users’ data in certain cases. After deciding to stop ADP, the US-based company has apparently initiated legal action in an attempt to avoid complying with the government’s request.
Apple’s Decision To End ADP Suggests That Users’ Privacy Is At Risk Everywhere
Regardless of what will happen in court, the decision to stop ADP came as a shock, as Apple has built its brand on the commitment to protect its users’ privacy at all cost. In the past, other government agencies tried to force the company to back down from its privacy commitment, but Apple always resisted those attempts, until now. What a disappointment! Apple has broken its promise to keep users’ data safe and private and, in turn, is risking breaking users’ trust. Our research identifies one of the key components of trust as the ability of a company to “keep its promise,” and Apple sadly didn’t. Consumers in the UK will take note. Data suggests that when it comes to UK consumers:
- 18% say they would stop doing business permanently with a company if it did something that appears to contradict the values the company stands for.
- 20% would buy less from the same company.
- 23% would advocate against that company.
Apple’s UK Decision May Have Global Repercussions
Apple, with a long-standing commitment to users’ privacy, has backed down in the face of a government’s request to access users’ data. What happens when other governments will ask other companies, including those historically less concerned with the protection of users’ privacy, to do the same? What happened in the UK sets a global precedent. The fact that, paradoxically, it was Apple’s decision to set this precedent is also meaningful.
Undermining consumers’ privacy is a mistake. Our research shows that across the globe, data privacy is still the top issue and where consumers believe that companies should lead change. Ultimately, this signals what consumers consider companies to be responsible for and have control over, such as protecting their customers’ data.
The UK Government Must Build, Not Destroy, Trust
Ending ADP in the UK means the government will be able to access users’ data, with Apple UK customers short of any other means of preventing it. According to Forrester’s Global Government, Society, And Trust Survey, 2024, 65% of UK consumers agree or strongly agree that they have the right to keep their personal data private from the government. Citizen backlash is already happening!
This is important and impactful because:
- UK citizen trust in their government is already weak. While variations appear between gender, age, and income, data that Forrester collected at the end of 2024 shows that trust in the UK government is weak across all demographics. As we pointed out earlier, low levels of trust mean that governments, agencies, and the public sector in general will struggle to successfully implement mission-critical activities.
- The UK government is determined to embrace AI across core government activities and the public sector. It’s also bravely trying to find its own path between the regulated approach of the EU and the unregulated approach of the US. But without trust, both strategies will likely fail or only achieve limited outcomes.
Prioritizing Trust Must Become The New Modus Operandi
As we highlighted previously, there are specific levers of trust that become more important than others in relation to AI and its risks. Government teams building and implementing AI applications for UK citizens must prioritize being able to understand, and act on, those levers of trust.
Our research also demonstrates that citizens don’t all react the same way in regards to trust. Depending on their behavior and the levers of trust that they prioritize in their relationship with government and the public sector, we created four citizen segments. For example, the segment that we call “supporters,” which includes those who typically comply with government directives and seek general positive collective outcomes, will likely be the most negatively impacted by the government’s decision to access citizens’ data that, until now, they believed to be private.
Governments and the public sector must understand how different groups behave in response to certain decisions and experiences, as well as how their trust (and their behavior) can be restored.
Stay tuned for more research on these topics if you are interested, and if you are a Forrester client, schedule a guidance session to continue the conversation.
