Great Britain demands Apple back door again-this time only for British users

The British government again asked Apple in September using Technical Capability Notice (TCN) to enable access to encrypted iCloud backups. In contrast to the first arrangement in January, which required worldwide access, the new demand is limited to data from British citizens. This reports the Financial Times Citing informed circles.

The original request from January had triggered a diplomatic conflict between Great Britain and the USA and threatened to burden trade relationships. Apple then deactivated its extended data protection for iCloud, the Advanced Data Protection (ADP), in Great Britain.

However, according to data protectionists, the new arrangement could be just as dangerous as the first. Caroline Wilson Palow from Privacy International warns: “When Apple breaks end-to-end encryption for Great Britain, it breaks it for everyone.” The emerging security gap can be exploited by enemy states, criminals and other actors worldwide.

Apple had lodged a complaint against the original arrangement at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The orders are based on the British Investigatory Powers Act, which the government refers as necessary to combat terrorism and child abuse.

Diplomatic pressure from Washington

Great Britain had previously pushed to withdraw the January order. US President Donald Trump compared the British demand with Chinese state surveillance. In August, Gabard said that Great Britain had agreed to drop his demand for access to protected encrypted data of American citizens.

At that time, one person close to the Trump administration emphasized that every back door would also weaken protection for US citizens. The claim had to be completely withdrawn in order to meet the agreement between the two countries. While Trump’s state visit last month, which announced billion dollar investments in British AI infrastructure at the US technology company, the topic was again addressed by members of the US delegation.

However, two high-ranking British government representatives said that the US administration no longer has pressure on the British government to withdraw the order. This indicates that Washington may consider the geographically limited new claim as an acceptable compromise – although security experts warn that technically no real separation is possible.

Legal confidentiality makes debate difficult

Both Apple and the British Ministry of the Interior did not react directly to inquiries. Both are legally prohibited to publicly discuss TCNs. Apple had only been able to achieve a legal success in April that the mere existence of the lawsuit and the identity of the parties could be made public – the court found that this did not endanger national security.