Report from the Financial Times
In Brief – The UK is reportedly looking to step back from its legal standoff with Apple over the company’s use of encryption in its iCloud storage service. The Starmer Government is concerned that the conflict could hamper their ability to pursue tech and AI initiatives, including partnerships with the United States and US-based digital companies. The Home Office, the country’s lead law enforcement agency, is reported to have issued a demand to Apple in January to give UK security services the ability to access data uploaded to Apple’s iCloud storage by any user worldwide that uses Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP), which is end-to-end encryption that Apple cannot break. Although the demand has never been formally confirmed because publicly revealing it is itself a criminal offense under the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), Apple stopped offering ADP to UK users in February and brought a legal complaint to the country’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal in March. Throughout, Apple has said that the company will not build “a back door or master key to any of our products”, and once the standoff became public top US officials, including President Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, publicly criticized the UK Government initiative. Meta recently joined Apple’s case in the surveillance tribunal.
Context – Encryption policy has been an example of the UK’s digital policy schizophrenia. It aims to be a European haven of tech and AI investment while also pressing forward on tech regulations that run contrary to that goal. The Online Safety Act was nearly derailed in 2023 over threats to encryption, with top messaging services threatening to abandon the market. That standoff was defused by a government minister saying that no encryption change was forthcoming, but the issue was reopened by proposed changes to the IPA in 2024. The Home Office’s move in January might have been based on their belief that the incoming Trump Administration, which was harshly critical of Apple and Meta over encryption in its first term, would be amenable. However, this Trump Administration has a more robust digital wing.