UK Secretly Forcing Apple For iCloud's Backdoor Access For Users Around The World

[RAMROD 117,252]

Two senior Republican lawmakers are demanding answers from the British government about its secret order forcing Apple to break its own encryption. The UK has until March 11 to respond.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast sent a joint letter on Wednesday to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, pressing for a formal briefing on the Technical Capability Notice (TCN) served on Apple under the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act.

In January 2025, UK security officials secretly ordered Apple to build a backdoor into iCloud that would allow them to decrypt any user’s data, anywhere in the world. Not just suspected criminals, not just UK citizens. Everyone.

The order targeted Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature, the optional end-to-end encryption that ensures even Apple can’t read iCloud backups. Apple’s response was to pull ADP from the UK market entirely in February 2025, stripping strong encryption options from roughly 35 million iPhone users rather than comply with a demand it couldn’t legally discuss.

UK law makes it a criminal offense for companies to confirm or deny the existence of such orders, even to their own government.

Apple couldn’t tell the US Department of Justice that the order existed. The DOJ couldn’t verify whether it complied with the CLOUD Act, the bilateral agreement governing how the two countries share access to digital evidence. That agreement explicitly states it “shall not create any obligation that providers be capable of decrypting data.” The UK’s order appears to do exactly that.

The reaction in Washington was bipartisan. Senator Ron Wyden and Congressman Andy Biggs slammed the order as “effectively a foreign cyber attack waged through political means.”

The Apple case is not an isolated incident. Under Starmer, arrests over social media posts have become common, police forces have expanded facial recognition with minimal oversight, and the government is advancing plans for a centralized digital identity system. The encryption fight is part of a pattern.

https://reclaimthenet.org/us-republicans-demand-answers-on-uk-icloud-backdoor-order

[River 127,734]

Starmer ended up being a fascist in leftist clothes 

[InTheCloset 21,796]

Backdoor access. Just the wrong kind. If only a hot guy would access my backdoor

[Creyk 18,676]

I don't really understand what this is about and I read the OP twice. Like why do they want to spy on us.

[Phoenix Fields 2,714]

9 minutes ago, Creyk said:

I don't really understand what this is about and I read the OP twice. Like why do they want to spy on us.

They want a database. Idk why, tho. The same government contracts facial recognition CCTV in London for "crime prevention" but the evidence that they've actually used it for that purpose is dubious at best.

[Bronco 25,853]

2 hours ago, River said:

Starmer ended up being a fascist in leftist clothes 

Only a human rights lawyer would know how to effectively erase them.