The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) in London is the one that will consider Apple’s appeal against the UK’s Home Office secret order to include an encryption backdoor in the giant’s iCloud service.
As things stand now, pending the outcome of the legal – and political – wrangling, iCloud users no longer enjoy the security and privacy benefits of the Advanced Data Protection (ADP).
This affects iCloud Backup in the following categories: iCloud Drive, Photos, Notes, Reminders, Safari Bookmarks, Siri Shortcuts, Voice Memos, Wallet Passes, and Freeform.
Meanwhile, the tribunal itself is “secret,” and the date it will consider Apple’s attempt to avoid the permanent breaking of encryption, and of the trust of its users worldwide, has been set for Friday, March 14.
But privacy activists like Privacy International (PI) want these hearings to be public, since the outcome of the UK’s anti-encryption push potentially affects millions, possibly billions of people around the world.
Secret as it may be, the IPT – which is believed to normally deal with national security issues – announced Friday’s closed-door meeting, a move that is described as “unusual.”
Unusual perhaps, but not illogical – Apple’s appeal against the original secret order was also apparently meant to be secret but has in the meantime been “leaked” to the public.
The original order came from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who targeted the US company with a “technical compatibility notice.” The end result of compliance was giving UK’s spies and law enforcement access to data, by compromising iCloud encryption.
Hellbound and Down 