As part of its iOS 9 announcement on Monday, Apple revealed that all newer iDevices equipped with TouchID and running the newer version of the operating system will be required to upgrade from a four-digit to a six-digit passcode. Passcodes remain optional, and users can create a more complex alphanumeric password, but six digits will be the minimum. After 10 failed attempts to type in the code, the device will erase itself.

According to Apple (and math), this will vastly expand the effort required to crack a four-digit passcode. Instead of 10,000 possible combinations, newer iOS devices will soon have one million. This change affects the iPhone 5S, 6, 6 Plus, iPad Air 2, and iPad Mini 3.

The switch comes at a time when the White House is in the process of coming up with a position on the issue as a chorus of government officials at home and abroad all call for backdoors in encrypted digital communications. Apple, which previously expanded its data encryption strategy under iOS 8, did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment on this issue. But the company made a point of underscoring its approach to user and data security during the Worldwide Developers’ Conference keynote on Monday.

Jonathan Mayer, a computer science graduate student at Stanford University, pointed it out on Twitter.

U.S. government: please backdoor your crypto. Apple: actually, we’re going to require stronger passcodes. pic.twitter.com/erygAs02WZ — Jonathan Mayer (@jonathanmayer) June 8, 2015

As Ars has reported , FBI Director James Comey, for example, said last year that he was concerned about Apple producing phones that are encrypted by default, which likely precludes the authorities from accessing data on iPhones directly from a locked device's hardware even with a warrant. The director said he was worried about "companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law."

Not surprisingly, the tech sector has resisted the change—as have some members of Congress. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) has lead this charge. As he said during an April 30 Congressional hearing, "It is clear to me that creating a pathway for decryption only for good guys is technologically stupid, you just can't do that."

He added:

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem. Why do you think Apple and Google are doing this? It's because the public is demanding it. People like me: privacy advocates. A public does not want an out-of-control surveillance state. It is the public that is asking for this. Apple and Google didn't do this because they thought they would make less money. This is a private sector response to government overreach. Then you make another statement that somehow these companies are not credible because they collect private data. Here's the difference: Apple and Google don't have coercive power. District attorneys do, the FBI does, the NSA does, and to me it's very simple to draw a privacy balance when it comes to law enforcement and privacy: just follow the damn Constitution.

Civil libertarians are likely to applaud the move.

"Seems like a good security practice to me, particularly as law enforcement agencies complain about the threat of cell phone theft," Hanni Fakhoury, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a former federal public defender, told Ars via iMessage. "If this will deter violent crimes like robbery and secure information, than I’m all for it. Plus, while it may make it more difficult for law enforcement, it won’t make it impossible and they will still have lots of techniques at their disposal to get access to information on devices."