The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) in London is the one that will consider Apple’s appeal against the UK’s Home Office secret order to include an encryption backdoor in the giant’s iCloud service.
As things stand now, pending the outcome of the legal – and political – wrangling, iCloud users no longer enjoy the security and privacy benefits of the Advanced Data Protection (ADP).
This affects iCloud Backup in the following categories: iCloud Drive, Photos, Notes, Reminders, Safari Bookmarks, Siri Shortcuts, Voice Memos, Wallet Passes, and Freeform.
Meanwhile, the tribunal itself is “secret,” and the date it will consider Apple’s attempt to avoid the permanent breaking of encryption, and of the trust of its users worldwide, has been set for Friday, March 14.
But privacy activists like Privacy International (PI) want these hearings to be public, since the outcome of the UK’s anti-encryption push potentially affects millions, possibly billions of people around the world.
Secret as it may be, the IPT – which is believed to normally deal with national security issues – announced Friday’s closed-door meeting, a move that is described as “unusual.”
Unusual perhaps, but not illogical – Apple’s appeal against the original secret order was also apparently meant to be secret but has in the meantime been “leaked” to the public.
The original order came from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who targeted the US company with a “technical compatibility notice.” The end result of compliance was giving UK’s spies and law enforcement access to data, by compromising iCloud encryption.
If this all happened just a few months before, it might have easily flown under the radar. But now, the case is shaping up to be another major rift between the new US administration and the UK/EU governments and bureaucracies, with warnings coming out of Washington against the attempts to jeopardize the privacy of Americans’ data in this way.
If it does happen – then that would represent “a clear and egregious violation,” said US National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard.
More: DOJ Caught in a Lie: How The Biden Administration Helped the UK Undermine Encryption
Privacy International is unimpressed with the ongoing, even if not successful, efforts to make the order and the anti-encryption moves targeting Apple, a secret.
“This is a very important debate to have in public because we’re talking about the security of our computer systems that can affect millions, if not billions, of people around the world, given the reported technical capability notice has global reach,” said the group’s legal director and general counsel, Caroline Wilson Palow.
