We learned back in February that the British government had secretly ordered Apple to create a worldwide backdoor into iCloud. We said at the time that the demand was “as technically clueless as it is outrageous.”
Apple responded very intelligently, and it seemed from a development last month that the UK had withdrawn its demand. We’re learning today that this isn’t in fact the case …
A quick recap
By default, some of your data stored on iCloud is protected by end-to-end encryption, but not all of it. Back in 2022, Apple offered the option of extending E2EE to all of your data through a privacy feature known as Advanced Data Protection (ADP).
ADP is not enabled by default, and many didn’t know it existed while others had not opted to enable it. The British government inadvertently did a favour for the world’s privacy by drawing attention to it.
In particular, it drew the attention of US politicians. The White House insisted that the demand be dropped, and last month it appeared that this had happened.
The UK has retreated from a controversial order that would have forced Apple to provide a backdoor to American users’ data, according to a statement from US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
The impression given at the time was that the deal was for the demand to be dropped entirely rather than merely excluding US iCloud users.
Britain still wants an iCloud backdoor
The Financial Times reports that the British government did indeed withdraw its initial worldwide order but has now replaced it with another one applying only to its own citizens.
The UK government has issued a new order to Apple to create a backdoor into its cloud storage service, this time targeting only British users’ data.
The White House had suggested at the time that Britain was completely abandoning its attempt to force Apple’s hand. Now that it has obtained protection for US iCloud users, however, it seems that pressure has been removed.
Members of the US delegation raised the issue of the request to Apple around the time of Trump’s visit, according to two people briefed on the matter. However, two senior British government figures said the US administration was no longer leaning on the UK government to rescind the order.
9to5Mac’s Take
As we’ve previously stated, this attempt to compromise end-to-end encryption is as technically clueless as it is repressive.
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