MARCH 13, 2025 | Today a bipartisan group of US lawmakers signed onto a joint lettre calling on the UK’s government to immediately bring transparency to their upcoming hearing for Apple on March 14th. The American technology company has found themselves in a standoff with the UK’s Home Office, which demanded backdoor access to encrypted Apple iCloud data under the Investigatory Powers Act.
Stephen Kent de la Centre de choix des consommateurs, an international consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., London and Ottawa reacted to the letter from Congress:
“British authorities are actively harming their own people’s privacy and data security by pursuing backdoor access to Apple’s consumer encryption. The United States correctly sees this as a domestic threat, because a backdoor in the UK means a backdoor for access to Apple users’ cloud data everywhere.”
The demand by US Senators Ron Wyden and Alex Padilla, as well as Congressmen Andy Biggs, Warren Davidson and Zoe Lofgren, is that the UK make their March 14th hearing public so that its proceedings can be analyzed by cybersecurity experts and the US Congress.
“The US government has changed its tune in recent years on the issue of encryption. They went from being outright hostile to encryption like the kind Apple provides, over concerns about countering terrorism, to then realizing it was the only thing keeping consumers safe whatsoever from massive foreign hacks,” Kent continued.
Mike Salem of the Consumer Choice Center’s UK office Raconté media in February about the clash between British authorities and Apple, saying “« C’est un jour très triste pour le principe fondamental de la protection de la vie privée des consommateurs au 21e siècle, car les utilisateurs sont privés d’outils qui exposent les citoyens britanniques aux gouvernements, aux criminels et aux pirates informatiques malveillants. Le fait que cela ait été fait sans débat, sans surveillance et sans avertissement préalable aux utilisateurs d’Apple au Royaume-Uni est extrêmement préoccupant. »
La Centre de choix des consommateurs applauds Republicans and Democrats of the US Congress, as well as the Trump Administration, in their vocal defense of consumer privacy in the case of Apple vs the UK’s Home Office. We hope the Investigatory Powers Tribunal yields to the request of the US Congress and makes their hearing public, before taking steps to walk back this disastrous attack on encryption which has left UK consumers without the protection of Apple’s Advanced Data Protection tool.
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FOR UK or US MEDIA QUERIES and INTERVIEWS PLEASE CONTACT:
Stephen Kent
Centre de choix des consommateurs
stephen@consumerchoicecenter.
Le Consumer Choice Center est un groupe de défense des consommateurs indépendant et non partisan qui défend les avantages de la liberté de choix, de l'innovation et de l'abondance dans la vie quotidienne des consommateurs dans plus de 100 pays. Nous suivons de près les tendances réglementaires à Washington, Bruxelles, Ottawa, Brasilia, Londres et Genève. www.consumerchoicecenter.org.