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

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.