IT House reported on August 30th that the Financial Times published a blog post yesterday (August 29th), reporting that the British government was exposed to asking Apple to establish global "backdoor" access rights for iCloud data.The scope goes beyond previous knowledge, not only for "advanced data protection" functions, but also covers cloud backup content such as messages and passwords.

According to the Financial Times disclosed documents of the UK Investigative Authority Court, the UK government's secret demands to Apple far exceeded external expectations, not only demanding to break iCloud's "Advanced Data Protection" (ADP) functionality, but also trying to obtain standard cloud backup data including messages and passwords.

The documents come from the UK's "Investigative Powers Tribunal" (IPT), in which two judges list "presumed facts" to be discussed at the trial in early 2026.

The document shows that in the technical capability notice (TCN) issued by the UK Home Office to Apple,It is not limited to local users in the UK, but is applicable to relevant data categories for all iCloud users around the world.

This means that once enforced, the requirement will affect the privacy of hundreds of millions of users. Apple had dropped the ADP feature in the UK due to the order in February this year, but the outside world had not known the nature of its global application.

This disclosure is in contrast to the statement made by US officials last week. At that time, U.S. National Intelligence Director Gabbard and Vice President Vance claimed that Britain had given up the encryption backdoor requirement under pressure from the United States. However, the new document shows that the Home Office has not formally revised or withdrawn its global data access request, and a person familiar with the matter told the Financial Times that they are "very worried that things are still going on" despite pressure from the United States.

Apple has long opposed the setting of backdoors for the encryption system, arguing that this move would undermine the security of all users and could be exploited by malicious perpetrators.This dispute has been seen as one of the biggest encryption legal wars since Apple and the FBI fought around the 2016 St. Bernardino shooting iPhone unlock.

The trial of the case is scheduled to take place in early 2026, but there are concerns that even if the UK gives in partial concessions, it may still retain some global data access requirements. The British government declined to comment on the grounds of "action affairs", and Apple is restricted by law from publicly discussing it.