Britain is waging war on Apple – it is already backfiring

Telegraph

22-02-2025

On Dec 2 2015, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik left their six-month-old daughter and drove to a Christmas party at the disability support facility where he worked. Armed with assault rifles, they opened fire on the attendees, killing 14 and seriously injuring 22, before being killed in a shoot-out with police.
The shooting was America's deadliest terrorist attack since 9/11. It soon emerged that the two had become radicalised online. Islamic State hailed them as 'soldiers of the caliphate'. FBI agents started investigating their online connections, pursuing signs of a wider network or contacts who might have enabled the attack.
Few would have been inclined to stand up for the couple's privacy. But when the FBI asked Apple to unlock an iPhone 5c belonging to Farook, Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, refused. He argued that creating a backdoor into the iPhone would compromise the security of its hundreds of millions of other users, causing catastrophe if it fell into the wrong hands.
'We have no sympathy for terrorists,' Cook later said, but added: 'The implications of the government's demands are chilling.'
In the end, both Apple and the government got what they wanted. The FBI eventually cracked the phone with the help of an Australian cybersecurity company. Cook kept his promise to customers never to create a backdoor.
But a decade later, Yvette Cooper has picked the same fight.
This month a bombshell report in The Washington Post revealedthat the Home Office had secretly ordered Apple to devise a way to break the securely encrypted version of its iCloud storage service.
On Friday, Apple took the nuclear option.
Rather than obey Britain's order to build a backdoor, the company chose to stop offering what is seen as a vital security feature. The company pulled the iCloud encryption feature, known as Advanced Data Protection, from British iPhones.
The move led to widespread criticism of the Home Office from privacy and security campaigners. Apple said it was 'gravely disappointed' by developments.
Cooper is now set for a fight with the world's biggest company, and potentially, the White House. Apple's British customers, meanwhile, have just had their security downgraded.
'Snooper's charter'
The battle with Apple has been 13 years in the making.
During the coalition government, the then home secretary Theresa May's plans for a sweeping surveillance bill were torpedoed by the Lib Dems, who labelled it a 'snooper's charter'. But after David Cameron won a Commons majority in 2015, the plans were revived. The Investigatory Powers Act gave the Home Secretary the power to issue encryption-busting notices, which could only be appealed through a secret tribunal.
Apple opposed the law at the time, warning: 'A key left under the doormat would not just be there for the good guys. The bad guys would find it too.'
As the years passed, the threat of being ordered to break encrypted communications and storage seemed to subside. The technology became ubiquitous in messaging apps, and a string of high-profile cyber attacks and relentless scams appeared to settle the argument. Untampered with encryption was the safest option for everyone.
In December, after a widespread Chinese attack on US telecoms networks, US law enforcement officials recommended for the first time that people use end-to-end encryption wherever possible. The warning was signed by agencies in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It was a clean sweep of the 'Five Eyes' intelligence-sharing nations, with one notable exception: the UK.
Successive British home secretaries have continued to attack end-to-end encryption plans from companies including Facebook. Last year, the Conservative government tightened up surveillance laws, requiring that in some circumstances companies seek secret approval from the Home Office before launching new security features.
'There's a passionately held view in government that it's just wrong for parts of the internet to be off-limits to those charged with lawful protection,' says one intelligence source.
The Home Office has increasingly found itself at odds with Apple, which has made privacy and security major parts of its marketing. In 2023, the company suggested that it would prefer to shut down services such as iMessage and FaceTime in Britain than weaken their protections. It later accused the Government of seeking powers to 'secretly veto' security features.
End-to-end encryption
Some security experts believe that Apple's increasingly strong rhetoric indicates it has been preparing for a secret order for some time, since the Home Office must consult with companies before issuing them.
While Apple does regularly hand data over to security services when asked, Advanced Data Protection, the Apple feature at the heart of the secret notice, encrypts content such as messages and photos in a way that not even the company can access.
Breaking this – as the Government's secret order requires – could involve developing and then installing a custom piece of software on a target's phone, allowing Apple unfettered access to their cloud storage that it could then hand on to law enforcement.
Reports have suggested that the Home Office has demanded a wider 'blanket' capability to read anyone's backups. Peter Sommer, a cybersecurity expert who advised MPs scrutinising surveillance legislation, says this would be disproportionate and unlikely. 'It's technically entirely feasible to break encryption on a per phone basis,' he says.
However, even if the order was targeted, security experts argue that developing the ability to crack an account, even if of a single terrorist, would put others at risk. Creating a master key for every door in town means it is possible that your own door could be unlocked, no matter how well protected.
Cook has made his position clear. Apple told the Home Office last year that it would 'never build a backdoor' and would prefer to remove features like iCloud encryption in Britain rather than comply. When Apple removed the feature on Friday, ministers could not claim they were not warned.
That will not be the end of it, however.
In theory, Apple must still comply with the order, since it could cover overseas accounts. Even if the order is now dropped, Apple will not be satisfied with the new stalemate, where it is left offering a less secure service in a crucial market.
US involvement
Diplomacy may be a more likely ending. Ron Wyden and Andy Biggs, a Democratic senator and Republican congressman respectively, have written to Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump's new intelligence director, attacking the UK's 'dangerous' and 'short-sighted' efforts, and urging Gabbard to tell the Home Office to back down.
The Trump administration is yet to comment. But Cook, who met the president on Thursday, will be urging him to intervene. While officials reportedly forced Apple to delay the introduction of Advanced Data Protection during Trump's first term, Silicon Valley has since forged strong links with the president, who has vowed to protect them from overseas interference.
Elon Musk, a close adviser to Trump, criticised the UK on Friday, claiming in a post on X that the same thing would have happened in America if last November's presidential election had ended differently.
Ciaran Martin, the former head of GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre, says that US authorities are unlikely to accept the crackdown.
'If there's no momentum in the US political elite and US society to take on big tech over encryption, which there isn't right now, it seems highly unlikely in the current climate that they're going to stand for another country, however friendly, doing it,' he says.
'The argument is lost. The geopolitical forces and commercial imperatives for the companies make what the Home Office seems to be trying to achieve next to impossible, not just now, but likely in the future.'
By taking on Apple, Cooper may have picked a fight she cannot win. Her Cabinet colleague, Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, said last year that tech giants like Apple must be treated as nation states. The Government may be about to get a lesson in what that means.