(Reuters) - Apple can no longer offer its most advanced, end-to-end encrypted security feature for cloud data in the UK, the iPhone maker said in a statement on Friday.

Advanced Data Protection, an optional feature that adds end-to-end encryption for security across a wide range of user data, is no longer available in the UK for new users, and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature, Apple said.

"We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy," the company said.

Britain had ordered Apple to give it unprecedentedly broad access to encrypted user data stored on Apple's data cloud, the Washington Post newspaper had reported earlier in February.

Bloomberg News first reported the latest developments earlier on Friday.