icloud

We learned back in February that the British government had secretly ordered Apple to create a worldwide backdoor into iCloud. We said at the time that the demand was “as technically clueless as it is outrageous.”

Apple responded very intelligently, and it seemed from a development last month that the UK had withdrawn its demand. We’re learning today that this isn’t in fact the case …

We learned earlier this year that the British government had secretly ordered Apple to create a backdoor into encrypted data for all iCloud users worldwide. Specifically, it wanted a way to see personal data protected by Apple’s introduction of Advanced Data Protection (ADP), which extended end-to-end encryption to almost all iCloud data, meaning not even the iPhone maker could access it.

Apple has been fighting the secret order in secret court hearings, but it now appears that the US government is using technology agreement negotiations to force Britain to back down …