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UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from top Trump admin officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance

MacDailyNews

Jul 21

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U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance

Keir Starmer’s UK government is seeking a way out of a clash with the Trump administration over the UK’s demand that Apple provide it with access to secure customer data, the Financial Times reports citing “two senior British officials.” The officials both said the Home Office, which ordered the tech giant in January to grant access to its most secure cloud storage system, will have to retreat in the face of pressure from senior leaders in Washington, including Vice President J.D. Vance.

Anna Gross, Tim Bradshaw, and Lauren Fedor for Financial Times:
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“This is something that the vice-president is very annoyed about and which needs to be resolved,” said an official in the UK’s technology department. “The Home Office is basically going to have to back down.”
Both officials said the UK decision to force Apple to break its end-to-end encryption — which has been raised multiple times by top officials in Donald Trump’s administration — could impede technology agreements with the US.
“One of the challenges for the tech partnerships we’re working on is the encryption issue,” the first official said. “It’s a big red line in the US — they don’t want us messing with their tech companies.”
The other senior government official added that the Home Office had handled the issue of Apple encryption very badly and now had “its back against the wall”, adding: “It’s a problem of the Home Office’s own making, and they’re working on a way around it now”.
In its order in January, the Home Office told Apple to build in a “back door” to allow law enforcement or security services to tap into the cloud storage system that stores user data that even the iPhone maker itself is currently unable to access…
In response to the demand, Apple withdrew its most secure cloud storage service from the UK in February and is now challenging the Home Office’s order at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which probes complaints against the UK’s security services…
A third senior British official added that the UK government was reluctant to push “anything that looks to the US vice-president like a free-speech issue”.
Trump has also been critical of the UK stance on encryption. The US president has likened the UK’s order to Apple to “something… that you hear about with China”, saying in February that he had told Starmer: “You can’t do this.”
See also: President Trump likens UK’s demand for Apple to kill iCloud encryption to Chinese monitoring – March 3, 2025
US director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has also suggested the order would be an “egregious violation” of Americans’ privacy that risked breaching the two countries’ data agreement.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment. “We have never built a back door or master key to any of our products, and we never will,” Apple said in February.

Apple in February pulled its most robust end-to-end encryption feature for iCloud data, Advanced Data Protection, in the UK — an unprecedented decision prompted by government demands for backdoor access to user data.
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MacDailyNews Take: For many years now, we’ve been fairly clear on this issue:

It’s not enough that every Brit alive has a government camera shoved up their ass 24/7/365? The UK has already slipped so far down the slope that they ought to rename the place Airstrip One. – MacDailyNews, November 3, 2015

The UK is a surveillance state gone amok. – MacDailyNews, April 8, 2025

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

The current batshit insane “leadership” of Airstrip One is having yet another crisis of confidence. – MacDailyNews, February 7, 2025

Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. – Potter Stewart

MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s Advanced Data Protection for iCloud is an optional setting that offers Apple’s highest level of cloud data security. If you choose to enable Advanced Data Protection, the majority of your iCloud data — including iCloud Backup, Photos, Notes, and more — is protected using end-to-end encryption. No one else can access your end-to-end encrypted data, not even Apple, and this data remains secure even in the case of a data breach in the cloud.

How to turn on Advanced Data Protection for iCloud

On Mac

Choose Apple menu  > System Settings.
Click your name, then click iCloud.
Click Advanced Data Protection, then click Turn On.
Follow the onscreen instructions to review your recovery methods and enable Advanced Data Protection.

On iPhone and iPad

Open the Settings app.
Tap your name, then tap iCloud.
Scroll down, tap Advanced Data Protection, then tap Turn on Advanced Data Protection.
Follow the onscreen instructions to review your recovery methods and enable Advanced Data Protection.

More info about Apple’s Advanced Data Protection for iCloud here.

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