Apple threatened to discontinue its iMessage and FaceTime apps in the UK if the country passed the new Online Safety Bill.
The UK recently introduced a new legislation called the Online Safety Bill and sought feedback after presenting it to the public. Apple has opposed the move as they did not want to compromise the security of the Mac and iPhone. Specifically, the Cupertino-based company said that they will not make security feature changes and weaken the product just for one country.
Apple dove into specifics and said that changes to FaceTime and iMessage will be made, along with other products as it will ‘constitute a serious and direct threat to data security and information privacy.’
Other companies, including WhatsApp and Signal have similar opinions. Signal went so far as to say that they will not do business in the UK if the law passes. The legislation seeks to remove end-to-end encryption to scan for harmful content.