A growing number of politicians and civil society organizations in the United Kingdom are demanding that the upcoming secret court hearing about the British government’s encryption demands on Apple be held in public. These groups argue that the government’s attempts to access encrypted messaging platforms should be more transparent, as warned by experts and the intelligence community. The Home Office’s refusal to confirm or deny the legal demand has been labeled as unsustainable and unjustifiable by academics, further fueling calls for openness.
The hearing, scheduled for Friday, is set to take place behind closed doors at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the only court that can handle national security cases in the UK. The case concerns Apple’s decision to disable the option for its UK users to protect their iCloud accounts with end-to-end encryption. This decision came after a reported legal order from the British government that required Apple to grant access to encrypted iCloud accounts, with Apple attempting to contest this order in court.
However, the specifics of the legal challenge remain unclear, as the British government continues to neither confirm nor deny the existence of the order.
Apple has not confirmed whether the encryption feature was turned off due to a legal demand but emphasized that they have never built a backdoor to their products. Privacy rights groups have strongly urged that the hearing be held publicly, stating that it is in the public’s interest to know when and why the UK government is compelling a company to compromise user privacy.
Several UK politicians, including those from opposition parties, have also called for greater transparency.
David Davis, a Conservative Party politician, argued that if the government seeks “unfettered access” to private data, it must explain its case publicly. Privacy groups, including Big Brother Watch, Index on Censorship, and the Open Rights Group, have joined the call for public hearings, stressing that this case has significant implications for the privacy rights of both UK and international Apple users.
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