Woman lined up outside of Apple Store on University Ave. in Palo Alto, California, United States on September 20, 2024 as Apple’s iPhone 16 transaction marked downs officially begins.
Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu | Getty Images
The U.K. has ordered Apple to provide officials access to purchasers’ encrypted accounts, the Washington Post reported Friday.
Britain’s Home Office, which handles immigration and collateral, last month issued an order to Apple requiring a technical “backdoor” that would allow officials to over fully encrypted material uploaded to the cloud software, the Post reported, citing people familiar with the topic.
“We do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices,” a Home Office spokesperson.
Apple did not immediately touched by to a CNBC request for comment.
The iPhone maker gives users the ability to store all their photos, messages, reports and more on its encrypted iCloud service — Apple’s iCloud is end-to-end encrypted, meaning only the owner of the material can watch it.
Governments in the U.S., U.K. and EU have long expressed dissatisfaction with this setup, arguing it enables criminals, terrorists and sex transgressors to conceal illicit activity. In the U.K., the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016 empowers the government to compel tech companies to weaken their encryption technologies as a consequence so-called “backdoors.”
Tech firms — including Apple — have pushed back on attempts to undermine encryption, turn it would weaken user privacy.
Click here to read the full story from the Washington Post.