UK May Backtrack on Controversial Demand for Backdoor to Encrypted Apple User Data

The British government may be forced to drop its plans to force Apple to build a backdoor to access encrypted user data, the Financial Times reports.

In February, it emerged that the British government had secretly demanded Apple gives it access to all encrypted user content uploaded to iCloud. It argued the ability, which is unprecedented for any other democratic country, is necessary for law enforcement and the security services to investigate serious crimes such as terrorism and child sexual abuse. In response, Apple removed Advanced Data Protection from the UK‌ and filed a legal complaint in an attempt to quash the demand.

Now, senior British officials speaking to the Financial Times say that the UK is likely to drop the plan amid pressure from the U.S. government:

This is something that the vice-president is very annoyed about and which needs to be resolved. The Home Office is basically going to have to back down.

One of the challenges for the tech partnerships we're working on is the encryption issue. It's a big red line in the US — they don't want us messing with their tech companies.

The demand to build a backdoor into ‌iCloud‌ and break Apple's end-to-end encryption could impede vital technology agreements with the U.S. related to artificial intelligence and data partnerships, and has already caused friction between the two governments. Senior members of the U.S. administration, including the President, Vice-President, and Director of National Intelligence, have all raised strong objections to the British government's request.

The Financial Times says that the British Home Office has handled the issue of Apple encryption "very badly" and now has "its back against the wall." For now, the government still appears to be pursuing the demand and apparently discussed next steps with lawyers as recently as this month.

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