The UK government has renewed its demand for Apple to hand over data uploaded by its users to the cloud, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.
Unlike its previous demand, dropped by London earlier this year, the latest request only concerns British citizens who are customers of the US tech behemoth.
But it is nonetheless likely to create fresh friction in the transatlantic relationship, with Washington highly critical of foreign entities seeking to regulate Silicon Valley.
The UK government wanted the tech giant to create a “back door” to let authorities snoop on data uploaded by Apple users if required, for example by law enforcement agencies, according to a Washington Post report in early 2025.
But Britain dropped the demand after months of work by US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard said in August.
According to Wednesday’s report in the Financial Times, however, which cites sources close to the matter, the UK’s interior ministry had made a similar request in early September, albeit one limited to British users’ data.
When contacted by AFP, a UK Home Office spokesperson refused to confirm or deny the new request.
Many tech platforms pride themselves on guaranteeing privacy through encryption and have long seen providing access to law enforcement as a red line.
After the UK government’s original request, Apple ended full end-to-end encryption for British customers and iPhone users, known as ADP.
The California-based giant told AFP on Wednesday it was “unable to offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom”
“As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will,” Apple added.
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