Apple fights UK government over iCloud backdoor as tribunal rejects secret hearing

[midian182]

What just happened? It has been confirmed that Apple is taking its battle with the UK government over demands that it weakens its encryption protocols to court. Cupertino secured an early win when the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal dismissed an attempt to have details of the case kept private.

The UK government demanded that Apple create a backdoor in its iCloud services earlier this year following years of pressure.

In January, Apple received a technical capability notice (TCN) under the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, commonly referred to as the Snoopers' Charter, requiring it to bypass or weaken its encryption for iCloud users.

Rather than risking compromising the security of its users globally, the company decided the best course of action was to remove its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) option for new UK users – existing ADP users will have to disable the feature manually during a grace period.

ADP offers end-to-end encryption for a range of iCloud data. It ensures iCloud backups, Photos, Notes, Reminders, Voice Memos, Safari bookmarks, Siri Shortcuts, and Wallet passes are encrypted so that only users can access them. Not even Apple can access the data.

There were reports that Apple would appeal the government's order via the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), an independent judicial body that reviews complaints against national security services. Nothing official had been announced and Apple wasn't willing to talk about the case due to its sensitive subject matter.

Now, the legal battle has been revealed by the IPT, which denied the government's request to keep details of the hearing secret over claims they posed a risk to national security.

Judge Rabinder Singh and Judge Jeremy Johnson said that the bare details of the case, such as its existence and the parties involved, should be revealed as this would not be damaging to the public interest or prejudicial to national security.

The judges added that preventing information from the hearing from being made public "would be the most fundamental interference with the principle of open justice."

"It would have been a truly extraordinary step to conduct a hearing entirely in secret without any public revelation of the fact that a hearing was taking place," they said.

The UK's demands on Apple caught the attention of Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, who said the US was examining whether the UK government had violated the Cloud Act data treaty.

The Act states that the UK may not issue demands for data of US citizens, nationals, or lawful permanent residents, nor may it demand data from persons located inside the United States.

Following the UK government's order, Apple said it has "never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will."

Apple has long fought against demands from law enforcement and governments if it feels that they threaten the security of the company's products. In 2023, it threatened to withdraw FaceTime and iMessage from the UK in response to a proposed change that would require it and other messaging services to clear new security features, including iOS updates, with the UK government before they are rolled out.

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Apple fights UK government over iCloud backdoor as tribunal rejects secret hearing

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

Can someone please sit down and explain to the UK officials that if Apple has to put in a back door for UK citizens then inevitably foreign governments will gain access to those back doors as well and be able to root the phones of UK citizens. Including said UK officials & their families, many of whom I presume use iPhones.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Can someone please sit down and explain to the UK officials that if Apple has to put in a back door for UK citizens then inevitably foreign governments will gain access to those back doors as well and be able to root the phones of UK citizens. Including said UK officials & their families, many of whom I presume use iPhones.

They dont really care, they want power to further observe and intrude on their citizens to monitor for wrongthink. Right now the UK is averaging 30 arrests per day for mean words on social media, previously we have seen leader like Nigel Farage have banking access denied for his political beliefs.

The best thing Apple could do here is suspend all UK operations until the government backs down. I bet it would take less then 24 hours.

 

[themastergoose]

I've seen this country sleep walk into state surveillance that would make China look less oppressive. Our government has made whole device encryption largely illegal since the new online safety bill laws were passed. They're debating the 2nd half of this bill that's due to come into law around September. If that comes in, VPN use is also being outlawed among other things.

Most products offering encryption here is now nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Sure, enabling security might prevent a petty thief getting into your phone, but when the encryption has backdoors any official can tap into without a warrant or any real reason it is pointless and only a matter of time before it's widely exploited.

Government's leading justification for it is mainly to prevent child abuse, and that's admirable but this really is not the way to go about it by having unfiltered access to every single citizens phone or laptop/desktop, messages, calls, on-device pictures/videos, browsing history etc. You get the idea.

We've already seen in the media so many times this year people who live here being arrested for things they've said on text messages, WhatsApp and social media sites. How far this once great country has fallen, but hardly surprising when within a further 5 years the immigrated population will have overtaken the indigenous population.

 

[dangh]

They dont really care, they want power to further observe and intrude on their citizens to monitor for wrongthink. Right now the UK is averaging 30 arrests per day for mean words on social media, previously we have seen leader like Nigel Farage have banking access denied for his political beliefs.

The best thing Apple could do here is suspend all UK operations until the government backs down. I bet it would take less then 24 hours.

First of all, Farage was denied bank access by decision of a private bank owner, and uk government fully backed farage up, secondly, those arent 'mean words on the media' but usually attacking and inciting violence.

As for the issue at hand, UK is getting mad and I fully agree with apple on this one, and I really dislike the company. UK seems to be trying to apply Chinese standards...

Speaking of Chins, somehow Apple havent had anything against storing users credentials so the Chinese police have full access to user data anyway, so... Double standards?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ina-raising-human-rights-fears-idUSKCN1G8060/
That is old issue, I kinda think the backdoor for chinese phones is already in place...

 

[scoffer]

They dont really care, they want power to further observe and intrude on their citizens to monitor for wrongthink. Right now the UK is averaging 30 arrests per day for mean words on social media, previously we have seen leader like Nigel Farage have banking access denied for his political beliefs.

The best thing Apple could do here is suspend all UK operations until the government backs down. I bet it would take less then 24 hours.

Don't worry. Islamophobia will no longer be a thought crime when the jihadis are in charge. In about 10 years by my reckoning.