UK Reportedly Backs Off Plan To Force Apple To Unlock Encrypted iCloud Data

The U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard posted on X that the UK has agreed to withdraw its demand for Apple to offer a "back door" that would let the government have access to encrypted data of American citizens.

"Over the past few months, I've been working closely with our partners in the UK, alongside President Donald Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance to ensure Americans' private data remains private and our Constitutional rights and civil liberties are protected," she wrote. "As a result, the UK has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a 'back door' that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties."

While the UK government hasn't commented on the matter, this case dates back to early this year, when after the UK ordered Apple to offer a backdoor, the company decided to drop support for its Advanced Data Protection feature in the country. Security experts have raised concerns that such a backdoor could lead to hackers exploiting it, as pointed out by Reuters.

Back in February, Apple sent a statement to BGR regarding the UK's demand.

"Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users, and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature. ADP protects iCloud data with end-to-end encryption, which means the data can only be decrypted by the user who owns it, and only on their trusted devices," says the statement.

"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. Enhancing the security of cloud storage with end-to-end encryption is more urgent than ever before. Apple remains committed to offering our users the highest level of security for their personal data and are hopeful that we will be able to do so in the future in the United Kingdom. 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."

It's still unclear if ADP will return to the UK, but at least it seems this controversial project is now off the table.