https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/07/apple-encryption-backdoor-uk/
Extremely concerning news. I cannot fathom how it can be considered proportional or in any way reasonable for the UK Government to demand access to E2EE content from all users worldwide.
Yeah they have to. They can’t take the heat if they comply. People will revolt and start dumping their stock.
I think Apple should not even appeal. Show the nation states that it doesn’t play games. Also, the appeal won’t give them any extension to not comply on time as it’s currently set.
They would have to leave the UK entirely or else they’d be criminally liable. No longer offering ADP or even iCloud in the UK wouldn’t be enough since they still wouldn’t be complying with granting access to foreigners E2EE data.
The vast majority of people do not enable Advanced Data Protection so I do not think this is a remotely realistic assumption.
This is incredibly sad. Advanced Data Protection is one of the most accessible E2EE methods for the journalists I used to work with.
I hope Apple fights back against this.
So the consumer’s will get screwed by the regulatory state again? Where have I heard this before?
They will refuse, but a loss of ADP is pretty huge for everyone in the UK 
One of us is wrong. One of us is right. Let time decide.
Well done UK, I grant them “The China Ally in Europe” award.
They are doing so well since 2021, they are absolutely amazing and well worth of the award.
1984 was set there for a reason!
Apple has the right to appeal the notice on the basis of the cost of implementing it and whether the demand is proportionate to security requirements, but any appeal cannot delay implementation of the original order.
as @phnx said this does not seem even close to proportional, I am assuming it will be appealed and if that fails as @fria said they will probably refuse and then threaten to pull their services. Very concerning.
I do wonder how they deal with not being able to delay the implementation of the original order as this proceeds.
These implementations do take time. I imagine a long and drawn-out legal battle.
I don’t think the British government has the manpower or public support to deal with an Appexit right now.
That’s exactly what they did in China! /s
I linked to the UK’s previous attempt at undermining encryption as a reference. But yeah in china they just don’t offer services if they’re illegal. I don’t think there’s any evidence that they ever intentionally backdoored a service.
Surely there are other options though? The population is only about 68 million or so.
Hopefully these bureacrats making the insane demands are suspectible to political change and can be rooted out once the administration changes.
This may lead to another instance of the UK going to find out the hard way that they are not as powerful in the world anymore, just as when they left the EU.
To be fair, China is a larger market and it’s one where nobody has any expectations of freedom or privacy from the government.
In the UK, people mistakenly believe that they’re a free country like the US where the citizens have constitutional ‘defence rights’ against the government.
Also, if iCloud got blocked in the UK it would be all over the news, while in China everyone is used to Western services being unavailable.
Still doesn’t accept the varying threat models we have and the necessity to utilize tools like these and what Revoking these rights would lead to so.
China is already screwed as is but if we really have to follow their footsteps then basically bye bye those rights which is just frankly unacceptable to begin with.
If Apple can get away with not operating the iMessage servers or any other infrastructure for the E2EE services while still operating in the UK, that is what they will do. If the choice is between backdooring their E2EE services and pulling out, they will backdoor the service. The UK is too big a market to lose.
If they give in, every country will push for the same access, but as long as it’s profitable, Apple will acquiesce - it’s the law, after all. It is not a public company’s place to decide what is good and moral; that is the government’s job.
This only seems theoretical, however, because just discontinuing the E2EE services seems to be enough to comply.
