How to activate Advanced Data Protection on iOS

February 3, 2023

One of the novelties of the latest versions of iOS 16.3 (in addition to macOS) is its ability to apply end-to-end encryption that provides maximum security and privacy to communications between Apple devices.

The only way to access data encrypted by Advanced Data Protection is by knowing the user’s Apple ID

It’s about the function Advanced Data Protection present in iOS 16.3, iPadOS 16.3 and macOS 13.2, the most recent updates to the iPhone, iPad and Mac computer operating systems that apply, among other things, to iCloud, Notes or Photos backups. Until now Apple did encrypt this content but not from end to end. Now a protection is applied that only allows access to the data after entering a password, so that in the event that the document was intercepted by another person, they would not be able to know its content without knowing the access code.

The only sections that are left out Advanced Data Protection are the iCloud Mail email manager, Contacts, and Calendar because, according to Apple, they “need to interact with global email, contacts, and calendar systems.”

Files generated by Apple applications or devices are locally encrypted and with said protection are stored in iCloud, without Apple having access keys to them on its servers. The only way to access would be Knowing the Apple ID password of the user. This would be the only weak link in this chain, since in case of losing or forgetting said key, all the content stored in iCloud would be encrypted and without the possibility of accessing it.