Britain tried to force a backdoor into Apple’s encryption last year and lost. It has not given up. It has narrowed the demand, served it again, and Apple is back in a secret court to fight it.
Apple has filed a fresh challenge at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the closed UK court for secret-surveillance cases, the Financial Times first reported. The complaint targets a “technical capability notice,” a secret order that can force a company to strip encryption from its products. Apple confirmed the filing but, like the Home Office, cannot say more; the law forbids it. A hearing follows in September.
The fight began in early 2025. The Home Office ordered Apple to break the encryption on iCloud’s Advanced Data Protection, the setting that locks a user’s photos and backups so tightly that not even Apple can read them. That order reached beyond Britain to users worldwide, Americans included.
Rather than build the backdoor, Apple switched the feature off for UK users in February 2025.
The quieter second attempt
