- The U.K. government has decided not to require Apple to weaken its encryption or add backdoor access to user data.
- The change followed months of talks between the U.S. and U.K., according to U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
- Apple previously disabled its Advanced Data Protection feature for U.K. users after receiving a demand for backdoor access earlier in 2025.
- The order to create a backdoor was issued by the U.K. Home Office under the Investigatory Powers Act, drawing criticism over privacy risks.
- Google and Meta reported they did not get similar requests from the U.K. government.
The U.K. has dropped its plans to make Apple weaken encryption features and add a backdoor, which would have allowed access to protected data of U.S. citizens. The decision came after several months of discussions between the American and British governments.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced on X that the U.K. agreed not to mandate a backdoor for Apple. She stated, “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.”
Earlier in 2025, Apple turned off its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature in the U.K. after receiving a demand for backdoor access from the government. According to Bloomberg, the company said, “We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the U.K., given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy.” Apple added, “As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services, and we never will.”
The backdoor order was delivered through a technical capability notice (TCN) from the U.K. Home Office in January 2025, under the Investigatory Powers Act. This law can require companies to provide access to encrypted data. Critics argued that creating access to cloud data, even for users outside the country, could expose data to cybercriminals or governments.
Apple appealed the order’s legality, and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal denied the Home Office’s effort to keep the case secret. Last month, Google told TechCrunch that it did not get any similar request from the U.K., and Senator Ron Wyden reported that Meta also denied receiving such an order. For more details, see Gabbard’s statement and the IPT judgment.
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