Protection against third-party access
A few days ago news circulated about the British government's request for access to iCloud. The aim is/was to gain access to everything stored in iCloud. This isn't the first attempt — Apple previously refused. What's happening now we don't know... but a new setting has appeared in the iCloud settings.
Advanced Data Protection. You create a key that encrypts your data. Classic stuff, familiar from Azure/AWS/GCP. No one but you has access to the data — but if you lose the key or access... you won't be able to get to your data either (unless you have a recovery contact).
An overview of which data will be encrypted.
Checking recovery contacts.
Done! Without a recovery contact you can't use the key to recover your data.
