Apple went before a London tribunal today to challenge the UK government’s refusal to confirm or deny that it has ordered the company to build a way into encrypted user data. The hearing is the latest round in a fight that has been running for more than a year and a half.
According to a report from Reuters, Apple’s lawyer told the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in London that the government’s secrecy policy blocks meaningful public discussion of the case and works against the principle of open justice.
A Year and a Half of Secret Orders and Public Denials
The saga started in early 2025, when reports surfaced that the British government had secretly ordered Apple to build a security backdoor into iCloud content for users worldwide. The order came wrapped in strict secrecy rules that stopped Apple from confirming or discussing it publicly, and the UK government has stuck to a standing policy of neither confirming nor denying orders like this one.
Apple’s response at the time was to pull the option to enable Advanced Data Protection for iCloud users in the UK, since that feature encrypts iCloud Backup and other data end to end. Rather than build the backdoor the order reportedly demanded, Apple simply stopped offering the protection to new UK users.
A UK court rejected the government’s attempt to keep even the basic facts of Apple’s legal challenge secret in April 2025. A few months later, UK officials backed off requiring access to American users’ data specifically, reportedly under pressure from the White House. The demand did not go away. The UK issued a new notice later in 2025 targeting Apple users inside Britain instead, and Apple filed a second legal challenge against that narrower order in August 2026.
Apple’s Lawyer Says UK Secrecy Blocks Open Justice
Today’s hearing focused only on the secrecy surrounding the new order, not on whether the UK is legally entitled to demand the access in the first place. Ben Jaffey, the lawyer representing campaign groups Privacy International and Liberty, told the tribunal the government’s position had become farcical, according to Reuters. “The horse has long bolted,” he said, pointing out that US politicians and unnamed UK government sources had already confirmed the order’s existence to the press.
Apple’s own lawyer made a related but separate argument, telling the tribunal that the neither confirm nor deny policy prevents meaningful public discussion of a case that is already partly public knowledge.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal will now decide whether the UK government can keep relying on its neither confirm nor deny policy in this specific case. A full hearing on the underlying order itself, the one asking Apple to build a way into encrypted user data, is unlikely to happen before next year, according to Reuters.
