iCloud vs. iTunes backups, government demands, your privacy, and a plea for optional encryption

Apple has posted its Report on Government and Private Party Requests for Customer Information for the second half of 2016.

The TL;DR of it is that demands on the data being stored on our iPhones, iPads, and Macs are, unsurprisingly, up.

In this context, it's important to remember that while Apple protects messages and other personal data with end-to-end encryption, Apple has to turn over iCloud backups when and if required to do so by law.

If your primary concern is convenience and data retention — you never want to lose a family photo, for example — then there's nothing new here. Keep doing what you're doing, backup to iCloud and keep unencrypted, easily recoverable backups of your Mac, unless and until your priorities change.

If your primary concern is data protection, though — you never want anyone else, including a government agency, to access your information — then skip iCloud backups and do an old-school iTunes backup and local Mac backup. And make sure it's all encrypted. Even if that means you might lose keys or not be able to recover damaged drives.

• How to backup your data iPhone and iPad with iTunes
• How to make an encrypted backup of your Mac

That, and join me in hoping Apple provides a way for expert users and privacy advocates to encrypt backups in such a way that absolutely no one else can ever access them. Even if it takes jumping through some initial set-up hoops, and is fail secure rather than fail safe.

That no only protects us against the abuse of privacy but hackers who get their hands on the tools used to abuse our data or the data itself once it's been demanded.