The U.K. government is still trying to gain access to encrypted iCloud data, according to the Financial Times, after British officials allegedly filed a new secret order demanding Apple build a backdoor.
On Wednesday, the British newspaper reported that the U.K. Home Office sent an order to Apple earlier in September requesting that the tech giant create a system to let officials access encrypted cloud backups of British citizens.
Privacy activists have warned that complying with such an order would be a mistake, and something that would impact the privacy of users worldwide.
When reached via email, Apple’s spokesperson Julien Trosdorf did not comment on the reported existence second order, but said the company was “gravely disappointed” that it cannot offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP), an opt-in feature that allows users to make their iCloud backups end-to-end encrypted so that not even Apple can access the data, to users in the country.
A spokesperson for the U.K. Home Office did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
This is the second time that the U.K. government sent Apple what is called a “technical capability notice,” after the U.K. government’s first order issued in January. At that time, the U.K. Home Office was seeking access to cloud-stored backups of any Apple user account worldwide that was protected by ADP.
That first order, made under the U.K.’s Investigatory Powers Act 2016, also known by critics as the “Snoopers’ Charter,” forced Apple to turn off the ability to enroll in ADP for new users in the U.K. and eventually to disable it for existing users as well.
“As we have said many times before, we have never built a back door or master key to any of our products or services and we never will,” Apple said at the time.
That previous effort by the U.K. government apparently failed, when U.S. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard announced that the British government had dropped the request after negotiations with the Trump administration.
Apple reportedly challenged the legal demand in court, which ruled that the process should not be held in secret.
This story has been updated to include comment from Apple’s spokesperson.
