Home Office 'back door' seeks world-wide access to Apple iCloud users' data, court documents confirm | Computer Weekly

The Home Office issued an order requiring Apple to remove electronic protections where practicable and to provide mechanisms to disclose categories of iCloud data, including beyond UK borders. The order applied to all iCloud users globally and extended beyond the company’s Advanced Data Protection Service. Apple launched a legal challenge at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal against the use of a secret Technical Capability Notice to compel the company to enable UK access to user data and messages. A tribunal decision confirmed that the Home Office powers were asserted to apply extraterritorially to relevant iCloud data.

The Home Office sought access to data and messages stored by Apple users on its cloud storage in the UK and overseas by demanding a 'back door' to Apple's iCloud service, a court ruling has revealed. A UK government order against Apple requires the company to "remove electronic protection where practicable" on data stored by Apple users on its cloud-based back-up service, including beyond the borders of the UK. A new court ruling suggests the UK has not yet dropped demands to access data of US Apple users, despite an announcement by the US director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, that the UK had backed down following a major diplomatic row with the US.

The document based on "assumed facts" reveals that Home Officer order goes wider than giving access to data stored by Apple users on the company's Advanced Data Protection Service - which it withdrew from the UK following the Home Office's actions - and covers all data stored by Apple users on Apple's iCloud service. Apple launched a legal challenge against the Home Office at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an independent body that rules on the lawful use of surveillance powers in March, after the Home Office imposed the order in January.

Apple is challenging the Home Office use of a secret order, known as a Technical Capability Notice (TCN), to require to it to introduce mechanisms to allow the UK access to data and messages stored by users on the iCloud. According to a court decision, issued by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal on Wednesday, the Home Office powers apply extraterritorially beyond the UK. "The obligations are not limited to the UK or users of the service in the UK, they apply globally in respect of the relevant data categories of all iCloud users," it sates. Apple required to disclosed messages and data The Home Office order against Apple requires the tech company "to provide and maintain a capability to disclose categories of data stored within a cloud

Read at ComputerWeekly.com