Tuesday 04 August 2026 9:21 am
Apple’s Second Tribunal Case Against UK (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Whitehall’s pursuit of a backdoor into Apple’s encrypted data is set to trigger yet another transatlantic bust-up after the US tech giant launched a new legal challenge against the UK government.Less than a year after Whitehall withdrew an earlier order against Apple, ending a legal dispute after a diplomatic disagreement with Washington, the Home Office has now issued a second notice to the tech giant. In response, Apple has launched fresh legal action against the UK government at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which specialises in surveillance complaints.The long-running dispute centres on the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), dubbed the ‘snooper’s charter’, first launched by Yvette Cooper, which allows the Home Secretary to issue technical capability notices (TCNs) and force tech companies to provide access to encrypted data.Apple had refused to build a backdoor and argued that weakening encryption for UK users compromises its security globally. The iPhone maker has disabled its advanced data protection (ADP) for UK users entirely.In a statement in September, the tech giant said: “We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP are not available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy. Enhancing the security of cloud storage with end-to-end encryption is more urgent than ever before. It added: “As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will.”Whitehall faced pressure from Washington The tech giant, using law firm Fieldfisher, had filed its first legal challenge against the Home Office at the Tribunal, and the case was expected to have a hearing scheduled for early this year. But other major tech players like WhatsApp applied to intervene in the Tribunal case to support Apple at the same time the UK government faced pressure from the US government. As a result, to end a diplomatic battle between London and Washington, the UK government dropped its demand for global data access.But the Home Office issued a second notice to Apple in October, which sought access to the encrypted iCloud data of UK users. Apple has now confirmed that it has filed its new legal challenge to the Tribunal, opening up the doors to yet another diplomatic dispute between Whitehall and Washington.
