UK Drops Demand for iCloud Backdoor for American Users’ Data 

The UK will no longer force Apple to provide a backdoor to data from US users of its iCloud service. Tulsy Gabbard, US Director of National Intelligence, announced the news yesterday after Apple previously pulled its iCloud Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature in the UK in reaction to the UK’s backdoor mandate.

“Over the past few months, I’ve been working closely with our partners in the UK, alongside @POTUS and @VP, to ensure Americans’ private data remains private and our Constitutional rights and civil liberties are protected. As a result, the UK has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a “back door” that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties,” Tulsi posted on X.

The UK government mandating Apple to provide access to all iCloud data from US users was based on the country’s Investigatory Powers Act from 2016. The law was recently amended to give the UK government the right to require companies like Apple to provide access to end-to-end encrypted data from users.

The Advanced Data Protection feature Apple launched back in 2022 currently has to be enabled manually, and it offers end-to-end encryption for additional iCloud data such as iCloud backups, Notes, and the iCloud Photo Library. In February, Apple disabled this ADP feature for new users in the UK, which was seen as a way for the company to not comply with the government’s order to build a backdoor into its cloud services. Now that the government has dropped its iCloud backdoor mandate, it remains to be seen if Apple will bring back Advanced Data Protection for iCloud in the country.

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Thurrott