US spy chief claims UK backed down over Apple backdoor demand
Tulsi Gabbard boasts Washington forced Blighty to drop iPhone encryption fight
The UK government has reportedly abandoned its attempt to strong-arm Apple into weakening iPhone encryption after the White House forced Blighty into a quiet climb-down.
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard broke the news on X, boasting that she'd 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," she added, "the UK has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a 'backdoor' that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties."
The Home Office has not yet confirmed the news, though a UK official told The Financial Times that "we can't and we won't" force Apple to provide a backdoor for encrypted data.
Apple, which has been fighting the Technical Capability Notice (TCN) through Britain's secretive Investigatory Powers Tribunal, didn't immediately respond to The Register's questions.
If the UK is indeed making this concession, such a backpedal would mark a clear win for Cupertino, which has repeatedly told governments that creating backdoors for "good guys" is just creating vulnerabilities for everyone. It also spares Number 10 the embarrassment of a diplomatic row with its closest ally, not to mention the prospect of trying to enforce a unilateral order against one of the world's richest and most lawyered-up companies.
For now, Apple's engineers can shelve their contingency plans, though the saga has already left its mark. In February, Cupertino switched off its Advanced Data Protection feature for iCloud users in the UK, making clear it would rather withdraw end-to-end encryption than bolt on a Home Office-mandated backdoor. The move was widely read as a warning shot to other tech firms tempted to base sensitive services in Britain.
"We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy," Apple told The Register in a statement at the time.
How we got here
Back in February, it was revealed that the Home Office had slapped Apple with a TCN — the first known attempt to force a global platform to deliberately weaken its own products under the Investigatory Powers Act.
Days later, Apple pulled its ADP feature in the UK, signaling it would rather walk away than give the government a skeleton key to iCloud. By March, Cupertino had taken the unusual step of challenging the notice at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, setting up a secretive legal battle over the future of encryption.
In April, the Home Office tried and failed to keep details of the case from leaking into the public domain. And earlier this month, reports emerged that the White House was leaning on its ally to row back, concerned that any UK-mandated backdoor would inevitably compromise Americans' data as well. In February, US lawmakers were already urging Gabbard to push the UK to reverse its demand. If the US ally refused, they argued at the time, the US must reconsider cybersecurity agreements.
That pressure appears to have done the trick. But with UK ministers still convinced they should be able to read the nation's private messages, it would be rash to assume Britain's backdoor obsession has been buried for good. ®