A secret court hearing on iCloud encryption began on Friday, amid calls in both the UK and US to make the proceedings public.
The British government is demanding that Apple create backdoor access, not just for the personal data of British citizens, but for all iCloud users worldwide …
The British government’s worldwide attack on ADP
By default, some iCloud data uses weak encryption – where Apple holds a copy of the key, and can be required to share data with governments on receipt of a court order – while some uses strong encryption, where only the iCloud user and their devices hold the key.
Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) is a privacy feature which allows Apple users to activate end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for almost all of their iCloud data. With ADP enabled, Apple has no access to the data, and would be unable to comply with any government demands.
The British government’s demand would have forced Apple to break ADP. Instead of complying, Apple withdrew the feature from UK users while it appeals the order.
The secret hearing into the secret order
One of the more insidious aspects of the legislation the British government is using is that the orders issued to tech giants are secret, and any appeal against them is also held in secret.
As we noted previously, Apple found a clever way to make it public.
It would have been illegal for Apple to tell the world that it has been ordered to create backdoor access to ADP. What the company cleverly did instead was announce that it was withdrawing ADP from the UK, without explaining its reason.
This message was crystal clear. Essentially “we cannot tell you that the British government ordered us to build a backdoor into ADP, nor that we refused.”
Apple was also not allowed to reveal it was appealing the order, yet that mysteriously became public too.
British journalists attended the hearing venue at the Royal Courts of Justice on Friday, but were not allowed into the courtroom.
Objections raised in both the UK and US
Engadget reports that multiple complaints have been filed, on both sides of the Atlantic.
UK media outlets (including the BBC, Reuters, Financial Times, The Guardian and more) have also filed complaints with the IPT, arguing that the case should be heard publicly. Ditto for the advocacy organizations Big Brother Watch, Index on Censorship and the Open Rights Group.
The Financial Times reports that Privacy International and Liberty have also filed a joint complaint.
“The UK’s use of a secret order to undermine security for people worldwide is unacceptable and disproportionate,” Caroline Wilson Palow, legal director at Privacy International, told The FT. “People the world over rely on end-to-end encryption to protect themselves from harassment and oppression. No country should have the power to undermine that protection for everyone.”
In the US, five members of Congress have also made a bipartisan demand for the hearing to be opened to public scrutiny.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., today called for transparency from the U.K.’s top surveillance court about the UK government’s reported order to Apple to build a backdoor into encrypted iCloud backups to enable government surveillance of messages, photos and other files […]
The bipartisan group of members urged the court to “remove the cloak of secrecy” surrounding the order, and to make this hearing and any further proceedings in the case public. They noted that secrecy in this case is pointless, given that the order has now been widely reported and commented on, and that Apple withdrew its encryption service for U.K. users last month.
9to5Mac’s Take
As the open letter states, this hearing is now one of the best-known “secrets” in the tech world. It is pointless as well as unreasonable to hold a crucially important privacy hearing behind closed doors.
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