The UK’s legal battle with Apple regarding end-to-end encryption won’t be kept under wraps, according to BBC reports. On Monday, tribunal judges dismissed the government’s attempt to keep details of the dispute confidential, emphasizing that “it would have been truly extraordinary to hold a hearing completely in secret without any public acknowledgment of its occurrence.”
This controversy began in February when the UK government covertly instructed Apple to establish a backdoor for iCloud encryption. Rather than complying, Apple opted to withdraw its Advanced Data Protection feature from the UK. However, certain types of iCloud data, including passwords, health records, payment details, iMessage, and FaceTime, continue to have end-to-end encryption. Amid all this, Apple has found itself unable to openly respond to the UK’s demands legally.
Apple subsequently filed a complaint with the Powers Tribunal to contest the UK’s mandate to compromise its end-to-end encryption. The initial hearing took place in secret last month, despite calls for transparency in the proceedings.
The government maintained that revealing the specifics of the litigation could harm national security. However, the BBC now reports that this argument did not withstand scrutiny:
In a decision released on Monday, the tribunal judges denied that request – noting the substantial media coverage of the situation and stressing the legal tenet of open justice.
“It would have been an extraordinary step to conduct a hearing completely in secret without any public acknowledgment that a hearing was happening,” the judges remarked.
“For the reasons outlined in our private judgment, we do not believe that the disclosure of the basic details of the case would be harmful to the public interest or detrimental to national security,” they added.
As a result, we can anticipate that more information regarding this confrontation will soon come to light.
DMN’s Take
There’s a notable irony in the UK’s attempts to keep its encryption dispute with Apple confidential while concurrently arguing that iPhone users should not have the right to keep the contents of their devices private.
