Apple has said planned changes to British surveillance laws could affect iPhone users’ privacy by forcing it to withdraw security features, which could ultimately lead to the closure of services such as FaceTime and iMessage in the UK.
I’m pretty sure that’s the end-game, yes. At least as far as communication based tools go, which would include chat apps, VPN’s, cloud storage etc etc. The ruling classes in the UK are very nanny-state and genuinely believe that a persons right to privacy comes a distant second to being able to rule over us and control us more effectively.
The issue for non-UK countries is that when world governments see that its possible to pass these sort of laws, they’ll be keen to do the same. And most people are not tech-savvy, they’ll have no real idea why it’s important or invasive. It’s difficult enough to get people to switch to Signal. Imagine trying to explain why breaking encryption is a bad thing for them.
