Apple’s decision to withdraw its most secure cloud storage service from the UK is just the latest turning point in a battle that has been rumbling on between US tech companies and successive British governments for some time.

The dispute centres on end-to-end encryption, a method of secure communication which enables only the sender and receiver to view messages.

Ministers have long argued that the technology, in its current form, is preventing law enforcement agencies from catching criminals, including terrorists and paedophiles.

However, Apple along with its fellow tech companies say they are not prepared to dilute the privacy commitments they have made to all their customers to meet their demands.

Whitehall has been trying to tackle this issue for some time.

Under the Online Safety Act 2023, it attempted to introduce client-side scanning. This would have forced tech companies to scan private messages before they were encrypted.

Meta’s WhatsApp and Signal threatened to exit the UK market in response, with the latter saying it would “100% walk”. The government later rowed back.

‘Snoopers charter’

Now it has used the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), the so-called ‘snoopers charter’, to try to force Apple to allow security authorities access to encrypted cloud data, which Apple itself does not view.

Rather than create a backdoor for the government, the tech giant said it would disable Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the UK altogether. This is its most advanced, end-to-end security encryption tool for the cloud.

When using ADP, only account holders can see photos and other documents they have stored on the cloud.

Apple users in UK lose extra security layer

It means Apple is now complying with the law, and in that sense the government has got what it wanted, but it means users in the UK have lost the additional layer of security.

The government believes the approach is necessary. In 2023, the Home Office published guidance, which stated that offences relating to online indecent images of children had increased by 13% over the previous year.

It pointed to a YouGov poll, which suggested that the public support the view that tech companies should develop technology that allows them to identify child sexual abuse in end-to-end encrypted messaging apps.

However, tech companies and security experts say a ‘backdoor’ isn’t possible without undermining security and privacy for all users. Experts have been trying to develop one for the past 30 years, with little success.

Some campaigners back tech firms

It’s not just tech companies who are fighting this corner.

When reports of this latest effort first emerged last week, 109 civil society organisations, companies, and cybersecurity experts, published a joint letter to the home secretary Yvette Cooper, which said the demand “jeopardises the security and privacy of millions, undermines the UK tech sector, and sets a dangerous precedent for global cybersecurity”.

Campaigners also argue that the move could threaten global privacy rights. Human Rights Watch has described it as a disproportionate and an “alarming overreach”.

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The group said: “People rely on secure and confidential communications to exercise their rights. Access to device backups is access to your entire phone, and strong encryption to prevent this access should be the norm by default.”

In the US, senator Ron Wyden and congressman Andy Biggs condemned the plan, calling it “dangerous” and “short-sighted”.

That being said, the US government has previously asked Apple to break its encryption to help with its criminal investigations, with little success.

Apple can appeal the decision but, in taking on major US tech companies, the UK government has a huge fight on its hands.