The legal battle between the US tech company and the UK government over access to customer data saw a closed-door hearing on Friday after the press was unable to enter the courtroom for the lawsuit.
Apple has appealed to the Investigation Power Court after the Home Office requested access to encrypted data stored on Apple’s cloud servers.
British media outlets such as The Guardian, The BBC, The Financial Times, and Computer Weekly tried to gain access to the court for public interest reasons but were denied entry.
The government’s representative in the case, Sir James Eady KC, was seen entering the court on Friday.
Apple is contesting technical capacity notices issued under the Investigation Powers Act, which require assistance from businesses in providing evidence to law enforcement. The notice requested access to Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) service, which encrypts personal data stored remotely on a server.
Apple refused to comply with the order and challenged it in court, raising concerns about the legality of the national intelligence agency’s actions. Apple also pulled ADP from the UK, stating they have never created backdoor keys or master keys for their products or services.
ADP employs end-to-end encryption, ensuring that only the account owner can decrypt the data. Messaging services like iMessage and FaceTime are also end-to-end encrypted by default.
The government’s legal demands, known as Technical Capacity Notices, prohibit recipients from disclosing the order unless authorized by the Secretary of the Interior. Court hearings are supposed to be closed to the public only if strictly necessary to protect national security.
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers called for transparency regarding the UK government’s orders and urged further hearings and proceedings to shed light on the issue.
Reports suggest that British officials have started discussions with US counterparts to ensure that they are not seeking blanket access to US data, only information related to serious crimes like terrorism and child sexual abuse.
The Home Office has been contacted for comment.
Source: www.theguardian.com
