UK silence over demand for Apple data access is farcical, lawyer says

A lawyer representing civil rights groups in a London tribunal on Thursday criticized the British government's silence on an order to bypass Apple's encryption to access customer data as farcical. The British government issued a technical capability notice (TCN) in January 2022, requesting a "back door" to encrypted cloud backups of U.S. and British citizens' data.

However, this demand was dropped following negotiations with the U.S. administration. In July, Britain issued a second TCN, targeting only Apple's UK customers. The government maintains it cannot comment on the existence of individual TCNs due to a policy of neither confirming nor denying security matters. Ben Jaffey, the lawyer for campaign groups Privacy International and Liberty, argued that the government's position has become farcical, noting that the horse had already bolted.

Apple, which does not have access to users' encrypted data, withdrew its Advanced Data Protection feature for UK users in February 2022, stating it would never create a back door. Apple and the lawyer both condemned the UK government's NCND policy, saying it undermines open justice and hinders public discussion of the issue. The British government's lawyer, Neil Sheldon, argued that altering the policy would pose a national security risk and potentially assist hostile actors in compromising operators' encrypted data.

The IPT will decide on the NCND issue at a later date, while a full hearing on the case is unlikely until next year.