After trying for most of 2025 to procure a set of keys to Apple’s encrypted iCloud data, senior U.K. government officials now reportedly recognize that they cannot win their privacy war with Apple and are looking for a discreet way out of the dispute.
“This is something that the vice-president is very annoyed about and which needs to be resolved,” said one official from the UK’s technology department. “It’s a big red line in the US–they don’t want us messing with their tech companies… The Home Office is basically going to have to back down.”
In January, the office of the Home Secretary issued a secret order demanding that Apple create a back door providing access to all content uploaded to the cloud by any of the company’s customers throughout the world. This “technical capability notice,” which was revealed via a tipoff the following month, was based on powers afforded by the U.K. Investigatory Powers Act of 2016.
Unsurprisingly the notice proved highly contentious. Macworld’s own Jason Cross said the order “would instantly compromise the security of over 2 billion Apple users across the globe,” a sentiment mirrored across the tech media landscape.
Politicians were quick to identify the potential security implications, with U.S. Vice President JD Vance saying it would be “crazy” to create a vulnerability which could be exploited by America’s enemies. President Trump compared the order to “something… that you hear about with China” and reportedly told UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, “You can’t do this.”
And Apple itself point-blank refused to comply, choosing instead to remove its encrypted Advanced Data Protection feature from iPhones in the U.K. and reiterating its defiance: “We have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products, and we never will.”
This accumulated pressure now appears to have taken its toll–and the political dimension is the key factor. The Financial Times reports that the UK government is “seeking a way out of a clash with the Trump administration,” citing the testimony of two senior officials.
The issue is that targeting Apple in this way is having repercussions in terms of the U.K.’s wider relationship with the U.S. and its ability to forge favorable trade deals. It doesn’t help that Apple CEO Tim Cook appears to be viewed as an ally by president Trump, who carved out a tariff exemption for the Cupertino company.
In other words, Starmer’s government has bitten off more than it can chew and will probably have to back down–but hopefully without looking weak or submissive. Not an easy assignment. We await further developments with interest.
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