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[ A win for US phone manufacturers, with spinoff benefits for people. ]
UK agrees to drop encryption 'backdoor' mandate for Apple
US spy chief says.
Kanishka Singh
itNews
Aug 20 2025 9:48AM
Britain has dropped its demand for the iPhone maker Apple to provide a
"backdoor" that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted
data of American citizens, United States director of national
intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said.
Gabbard issued the statement on X, saying she had worked for months with
Britain, along with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance,
to arrive at a deal.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was in Washington on Monday along
with other European leaders to meet Trump and discuss Russia's war in
Ukraine.
A spokesperson for the British government said that while they would not
comment on any agreement, Britain had long worked with the US to tackle
security threats while seeking to protect the privacy of citizens in
both countries.
"We will always take all actions necessary at the domestic level to keep
UK citizens safe," the spokesperson added.
Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Gabbard's
statement.
US lawmakers said in May that the UK's order to Apple to create a
backdoor to its encrypted user data could be exploited by cybercriminals
and authoritarian governments.
Apple, which has said it would never build such access into its
encrypted services or devices, had challenged the order at the UK's
Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT).
The iPhone maker withdrew its Advanced Data Protection feature for
British users in February following the UK order.
Users of Apple's iPhones, Macs and other devices can enable the feature
to ensure that only they - and not even Apple - can unlock data stored
on its cloud.
US officials said earlier this year they were examining whether Britain
broke a bilateral agreement by demanding that Apple build a backdoor
allowing the British government to access backups of data in the
company's encrypted cloud storage systems.
In a letter dated February 25 to US lawmakers, Gabbard said the US was
examining whether the UK government had violated the CLOUD Act, which
bars it from issuing demands for the data of US citizens and vice versa.
Cybersecurity experts told Reuters that if Apple chose to build a
backdoor for a government, that backdoor would eventually be found and
exploited by hackers.
Apple has sparred with regulators over encryption as far back as 2016
when the US government tried to compel it to build a tool to unlock the
iPhone of a suspected extremist.
--
Roger Clarke mailto:[email protected]
T: +61 2 6288 6916 http://www.xamax.com.au http://www.rogerclarke.com
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Visiting Professorial Fellow UNSW Law & Justice
Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
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