The UK reissues demand for Apple to unlock encrypted iCloud data of British citizens
Only a couple of months after it became known that the UK government had dropped its controversial backdoor mandate into Apple encryption, the Financial Times now reports that officials have issued once again a new secret order requiring Apple to provide access to encrypted iCloud backups of British citizens. Unlike the earlier request from January, which sought worldwide access, this technical capability notice is limited to UK users and is intended to support investigations into terrorism and child sexual abuse (yes, the exact same reason).
The January order triggered diplomatic tensions with the United States, as it demanded access to encrypted data from all Apple users globally. Under pressure, the UK eventually agreed to drop its demand for American citizens’ data in August. In February, Apple withdrew the Advanced Data Protection feature from the UK and filed a complaint with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, while also publicly opposing the government’s stance.
Advanced Data Protection is an opt-in feature that applies end-to-end encryption to iCloud backups so not even Apple can access them. Apple’s spokesperson expressed disappointment that the feature remains unavailable to UK users, while privacy advocates warn that complying with the latest order could weaken protections globally by setting a precedent for other governments to demand similar access.
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External links
- UK makes new attempt to access Apple cloud dataFinancial Times
- UK government resumes row with Apple by demanding access to British users’ datathe Guardian
- UK Government Issues New Order to Access iCloud User DataMacRumors
- UK government tries again to access encrypted Apple customer data: ReportTechCrunch
Comments
you know what is Funny, the thing is, the last few times some guy attacked people, a few days later we could read or hear in the news updates that that person had already been known to be violent, and quite a few times we also learned that they were supposed to have been deported. so Information does not seem to be the bottleneck at all, the police didn't do its job.
Too Many times, when we read about the person responsible for some sudden attack, everything needed to prevent that attack had already been known well before the attack. It's just that the authorities didn't do anything.
for example the Manchester attack, the guy who did it is Syrian who was out on bail after being under investigation for rape(did'n nothing) , his father lives in a home that the government pays for, even though his father is getting money from the government, he has a all sort of posts on Facebook against all the people who don't believe in what he believes in, Jews, christian and even other Islam scats(he deleted all posts now), you can see all that you don't need any icloud backdoor yet the guy was free.
So Don't fall for the meme that this is to protect "the people". There's a literally 1984 Quote about it: "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power"
ps: I am a migrant who left the Uk 11 years ago for good, the uk and eu remind me of the free fall of the roman empire or the Soviet Union, they didn't fall over night but anyone could see from a miles ahead.
"Terrorism" aka someone prayed in their head too loudly or didn't give their daughter to a group of migrants.
Apple refusing the global backdoor was straightforward, and the US administration cheering up was even more obvious, but since then, nobody has inquired what this "secret deal" between Apple and UK was. So this deal may still be wandering, it may even be some kind of weak encryption for UK accounts, and not only we may never heard about it even if it's in place, but who knows (except Apple) if it's not already used by some other countries, since there is basically not a single way to check for it ; just blind trust and hope for the best.
Apple hater here: Go Apple!