Apple will begin evaluating material shared through public iCloud links with iOS 27.3, iPadOS 27.3, macOS 27.3 and visionOS 27.3. The releases were available to developers in beta and are expected to reach the public in December.
Apple’s policy update, as first reported by The Hacker News, applies to iCloud Photos images and iCloud Drive files shared using the “Anyone with the link” setting. Apple says those publicly available items will be accessible to the company for content checks.
Public iCloud links will lose end-to-end encryption
The company distinguishes public link sharing from sending a copy of a file directly to someone. iCloud users can also share files and photo collections with selected people, while the “Anyone with the link” option creates a URL that can be passed along more widely.
Apple says material made available through that setting is no longer protected by end-to-end encryption, even when a customer has enabled Advanced Data Protection. That optional feature extends end-to-end encryption to supported iCloud data, limiting Apple’s ability to access it.
Apple can remove material and disable accounts
Under the new policy, Apple reserves the right to move, refuse, modify, remove or delete material it considers harmful. It may also block or disable related accounts and involve law enforcement.
The shift matters for people who use public URLs to distribute photo albums, documents or other cloud-hosted files. Advanced Data Protection has been Apple’s strongest iCloud privacy option, and this creates a specific exception for content exposed through a shareable link. Users who need the feature’s encryption protections will need to consider whether a public URL is necessary.
Apple has not defined the categories that qualify as harmful material, said whether it will rely on automated detection, human reviewers or both, or explained whether existing public links will face the new evaluations. The company also has not described how the checks will work or whether account holders will have an appeals process when it takes enforcement action.
This article was produced with AI assistance from multi-source reporting and is published under our editorial standards.
