19 votes

UK tribunal denies government's request to keep details of 'backdoor order' case secret, that lead to Apple disabling 'Advanced Data Protection Service' for UK customers

1 comment

  1. AndreasChris
    (edited )
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    Here's a direct link (PDF) to a shortended Version of the ruling released earlier today. For Reference: Some time ago apple announced they will disable the 'Advanced Data Protection Service' for...

    Here's a direct link (PDF) to a shortended Version of the ruling released earlier today.

    For Reference:
    Some time ago apple announced they will disable the 'Advanced Data Protection Service' for UK customers. The service basically allows you to manage the encryption keys for your iCloud data in a way so that apple cannot access it even them they wanted to. You basically give up a bunch of data recovery options in favor of increased security and privacy.
    Their press release didn't give an explicit reason why they did it, but if you read between the lines it became clear that they chose to withdraw entirely instead of implementing some kind of backdoor. Hence pretty quickly there were reports online of Apple being issued a technical capability notice under the UK Investigatory Powers Act. This is basically the UK equivalent of a US national security letter. You have to comply with the order (e.g. give executive powers access to customer data) and must not talk about it. Apple has appealed this, but was not allowed to confirm anything publicly.
    There's a dedicated secret tribunal called 'The Investigatory Powers Tribunal' that has been specifically created to deal with these kinds of appeals, as it would defeat the purpose to have a public ruling about a secret order. Apparently the tribunal now decided that the secrecy is not warranted in this case. This is a win in terms of transparency, but doesn't mean that the order itself has been invalidated (yet).
    Let's hope for privacy's sake that the government's order won't stand the test of time.

    11 votes