The UK government has demanded that Apple creates a backdoor in its encrypted cloud service, in a confrontation that challenges the US tech firm’s avowed stance on protecting user privacy.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that the Home Office had issued a “technical capability notice” under the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), which requires companies to assist law enforcement in providing evidence.
The demand, issued last month, relates to Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) service, which heavily encrypts personal data uploaded and stored remotely in Apple’s cloud servers, according to the Post, which said this was a “blanket” request that applied to any Apple user worldwide. The ADP service uses end-to-end encryption, a form of security that means only the account holder can decrypt the files and no one else can – including Apple. {read}