U.S. officials are reportedly studying whether the UK has violated bilateral agreements, requiring Apple to establish a “backdoor” that allows the British government to access data backups in the company’s encrypted cloud storage system.
Apple withdraws encrypted storage capabilities for UK users last week after it refused to create such a backdoor, even for foreign users, allowing access to messages and photos. The Washington Post reported that Apple rejected the British government’s request.
In a letter from February 25 to February 25, the director of the National Intelligence Agency Tulsi Gabbard said the United States is reviewing whether the British government has violated the Cloud Act, which prohibits the issuance of data on U.S. citizens and vice versa.
“My lawyers are working to make legal comments on the reported UK demands for Apple’s bilateral cloud bill agreement,” Gabbard wrote to Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, and Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona.
“After a preliminary review of the U.S. and UK bilateral cloud bill agreement, the UK may not issue any requests for data from U.S. citizens, nationals or legal permanent residents (“Americans”) nor authorize the request for data from people in the U.S..”
In 2022, Apple introduced end-to-end encryption for iCloud iPhone backups, which means that only users – not Apple – can make data spread.
Cybersecurity experts told Reuters that if Apple chooses to build backdoors for the government, it will eventually be discovered and exploited by hackers.
Apple has already towed with regulators, and back in 2016, the U.S. government tried to force it to build a tool to unlock iPhones for suspects of terrorism.
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