[Text/Observer Network Chen Sijia] According to the Financial Times reported on October 2nd, the British government is trying to obtain the data of Apple users in the UK, asking Apple to set up a "back door" in its cloud storage service iCloud. This order triggered a dispute between Apple and the British government. Apple issued a statement on the 1st saying that it would not build a "backdoor" in its products.
In January this year, the UK issued a “Technical Capability Notice” (TCN) to ask Apple for access to global user encrypted data. The UK government claims that law enforcement needs a TCN mechanism to investigate terrorism and child sexual abuse. The request sparked dissatisfaction from the U.S. government, with U.S. Vice President Watson and National Intelligence Director Gabard both asking the UK to withdraw the relevant directives.
Following pressure from the Trump administration on the UK, Gabard said in August that Britain had made concessions and agreed to give up access to encrypted data protected by U.S. citizens.
But people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times that the UK government has not given up on TCN, and they are still trying to get cloud data of British citizens from Apple. In early September, the UK Home Office proposed a new order requiring Apple to create a "backdoor" in iCloud, but stipulating that the order only applies to the data of British citizens.
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The British Home Office declined to comment on this revelation. The department said in a statement: "We do not comment on operational matters, including confirming or denying the existence of such notices. We will always take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of British citizens at the national level."
Apple stopped providing iCloud Advanced Data Protection Services (ADP) in the UK in February this year, and the company issued a statement on October 1 saying: “Apple is still unable to provide ADP to new users in the UK. We are very disappointed that the protection offered by ADP is not available among UK customers, given the continued increase in data breaches and other threats to user privacy.”
Apple added: “As we have said many times before, we’ve never built backdoors for any of our products or services, and we’ll never do so.”
According to the Financial Times, Apple has filed a lawsuit against the UK’s originally filed TCN order with the UK Investigation Authority Court, which is responsible for investigating whether domestic intelligence agencies have been acting illegally.The case was scheduled for trial in early 2026, but the UK government’s recent new request could resume legal proceedings.
British and U.S. diplomatic frictions around Apple’s user data issues have threatened the trade agreement reached between the two countries.A source close to the Trump administration said that the UK must completely withdraw the order that required Apple to set up a “backdoor” if it wants to maintain the deal, as any “backdoor” would weaken the protection of U.S. citizens.
Privacy advocates point out that any move that forces Apple to weaken the security of its systems could put private information of users around the world at risk, including passwords, message logs and health data that may be stored in iCloud.
Caroline Wilson Palow, legal director of Privacy International, a British non-governmental organization, believes that the request put forward by the UK will pose a serious threat to global security and privacy. "If Apple breaks end-to-end encryption for the UK, it actually breaks encryption for everyone. The resulting vulnerability may be exploited by malicious actors on a global scale."
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