[HN Gopher] UK once again demands backdoor to Apple's encrypted ...
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UK once again demands backdoor to Apple's encrypted cloud storage
Author : otterley
Score : 73 points
Date : 2025-10-01 17:10 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| hereme888 wrote:
| That is some evil government.
| Pesthuf wrote:
| Looks like I finally found some common ground with the US
| government. May the UK fail again.
| hadlock wrote:
| Is there some sort of way short of constitutional amendment (or
| UK equivalent) to avoid having to defend this "legal challenge"
| every time it comes up? This is so exhausting I don't even bother
| clicking on the article, I just write a check to the EFF.
|
| I feel like the toothpaste is already out of the tube on
| effective, low effort, decentralized encryption, but there's
| plenty of $$$ government contracting dollars to be made
| integrating government systems with megacorp datastorage, so
| there will always be someone else pushing to make this happen.
| ben_w wrote:
| The closest the UK has to a constitution-like protection is
| getting it to sign an international treaty, e.g. what's behind
| the Human Rights Act -- after Brexit, some of the usual
| suspects have been campaigning to also leave the corresponding
| treaty, because it limits the sovreign right of each government
| to completely disregard what the previous one did.
|
| To answer your question, the other solution is to do what I did
| in response to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016: leave the
| country.
| blibble wrote:
| > The closest the UK has to a constitution-like protection is
| getting it to sign an international treaty
|
| international treaties have no effect under UK law, unless
| Parliament decides to pass an Act containing its provisions
|
| this is called dualism
|
| for example, the effect of all EU law in the UK was dis-
| applied with an Act of Parliament, by a single line:
|
| > The European Communities Act 1972 is repealed on exit day.
|
| (European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018)
| Traster wrote:
| Just to be clear, the UK system is much simpler than the US
| system. There is just a bad law. That law could be repealed
| with a majority in parliament tomorrow, until it is repealed
| (spoiler it absolutely will not be repealed) the regulator can
| and will file these law suits. The best we can hope for is that
| the regulator (Home Office) just don't bother trying to enforce
| the law.
|
| The core problem is the people writing the laws are know-
| nothing busy bodies who write crap laws and then cause massive
| problems, and we've demonstrated over the last 18 months that
| you can fire literally 70% of the UK Parliament, replace them
| all and _still_ end up with the same rules written by the same
| know-nothing busy bodies.
| malux85 wrote:
| Is the problem that the system is inherently broken, or does
| the problem sit in that 30% ?
| magospietato wrote:
| Whitehall - the UK civil service - persists between
| governments in a fairly unique way. It's essentially a
| political entity that exists beyond democracy that has
| pinky-promised to be politically ambivalent.
|
| To paraphrase an adage I've forgotten: you can skim as much
| shit as you like off the Thames, it'll still be a filthy
| river.
| dapperdrake wrote:
| Any decade bow the answer will dawn on someone.
| petre wrote:
| In the real world one would get the cold shoulder. In the UK,
| they get the Boston Tea Party and the IRA as a response for the
| British government being _smart_.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| When the current Labour party doesn't want us voting for the
| Reform Party. This stuff isn't going to win votes.
|
| The Reform party, a far-right party who tell us they will retract
| all these laws; not that I believe them.
| bArray wrote:
| There's a claim that the Reform Party is extreme-right
| fascists, but I'm only looking at one party in power pulling
| dictatorship moves. They're not even done either, there is the
| intention to also add this digital ID on top - and I'm sure at
| some point that will also be tied to your online activities.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| I've removed the statement because your right and wrote in
| haste. It is anecdotal and self-bias but Nigel Farage being
| the leader of the UK is next level dystopian-bleak.
|
| Someone who pushed for Brexit, supports Hard Euroscepticism
| (yet has an European wife) running a party promoting that
| human-made climate change isn't a thing, want "illegal"
| immigrants thrown out of the UK, removal from Europe's
| Convention of Human Rights is a party I don't want to imagine
| being in power.
|
| With regards to my online activities, I am already supposedly
| a terrorist for using Tor.
| bArray wrote:
| > I've removed the statement because your right and wrote
| in haste.
|
| It happens to us all.
|
| > Someone who pushed for Brexit, supports Hard
| Euroscepticism, (yet has an European wife) [..]
|
| I think the largest push was for sovereignty of the nation,
| which is a huge win for democracy. The UK shouldn't have
| people making important decisions that cannot be unelected.
|
| I don't think that Brexit was driven by a hatred of
| Europeans or European nation states.
|
| > [..] and runs a party promoting that human-made climate
| change isn't a thing, [..]
|
| Not sure that this is the case, I think the case being made
| is that net-zero is being chased religiously at the cost of
| economic growth. If the UK want to be a leader in AI for
| example, then the UK needs access to cheap reliable energy.
|
| > [..] wants immigrants thrown out of the UK is a party I
| don't want to imagine being in power.
|
| I think to be clear, they want economically unproductive
| immigrants and criminals out of the UK. This seems to be
| the policy of all the major parties currently.
|
| > With regards to my online activities, I'm already a
| terrorist for using Tor.
|
| As they say whilst taking your privacy away: "if you've got
| nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear".
| doublerabbit wrote:
| > Not sure that this is the case, I think the case being
| made is that net-zero is being chased religiously at the
| cost of economic growth.
|
| Quoting Wikipedia here,
|
| > A late 2024 poll done by YouGov found that Reform UK
| voters are twice as likely as the general public, to
| believe that climate change is not caused by human
| activity
|
| > In February 2025, Tice said: "There's no evidence that
| man-made CO2 is going to change climate change.
|
| > In April 2025 Farage said that the current government's
| net zero policy was "lunacy" and that "[t]his could be
| the next Brexit - where Parliament is so hopelessly out
| of touch with the country."
|
| > In July 2025, Reform UK's Mayor of Greater
| Lincolnshire, Andrea Jenkyns, said, "Do I believe that
| climate change exists? No."
|
| Tice being the Deputy. Of course the First isn't going to
| admit to it, but if the second implies it; that pretty
| much sets the tone of the parties agenda. With the added
| Mayor I would conclude that the party is anti-climate
| change.
|
| > If the UK want to be a leader in AI for example, then
| the UK needs access to cheap reliable energy.
|
| The UK will never be a leader again, we were once but
| threw it all away to privatisation and stripping of
| industries. You're only the leader when you actually
| produce, we rarely do that anymore.
|
| Besides "cheap reliable" is an oxymoron. Anything cheap
| is not reliable, anything reliable isn't cheap. Nuclear =
| Reliable but expensive, Renewable = Cheap but unreliable
| (in comparison).
|
| Where was the best place to obtain that; the best place
| was the EU! We decided to axe that, bravo.
|
| > I think to be clear, they want economically
| unproductive immigrants and criminals out of the UK.
|
| Why isn't there focus on national citizens, or can we do
| no harm?
|
| That primary focus is bogus. I don't rule out that
| immigrants are not committing crimes, I don't have time
| to source the stats so I'll play the devils advocate and
| say maybe. Maybe it's more, maybe it's less but crime is
| crime.
|
| If it is truly immigrants, then why have we not been
| tackling immigration laws? Why is it suddenly a concern
| now when crimes have been reported and ignored for
| decades? The government(s) have documented cases of these
| gang-crimes for years.
|
| Instead we cut funds to the police force, special
| services so instead of tackling proper immigration these
| governments swept them under the rug and instead rile
| folk for the sake of ?. Throw the blame of that it is
| immigrants when it's the corruption, stir the pots of
| "Your from X go back to your own country" leading to
| uneducated dimwitted-ness of "Your of different culture
| go back to your own country!" and push votes for your new
| corrupt agenda.
|
| We will however go for the innocent folk who have really
| done nothing wrong though. I want privacy as the next
| person, "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is as like
| "when the fun stops, stop!" a sponsored gambling anti-
| gambling advertisement campaign. When your an addict,
| there is no fun to stop.
|
| I enjoy walking around my apartment naked when I wake up
| which is why I own curtains. The government can't watch
| me apart from my WiFi signal. McAdverts can't advertise
| to me boxer briefs and Doritos for breakfest; we did have
| window tax once, I'm sure curtain tax will be a thing too
| soon.
| jen20 wrote:
| > I don't think that Brexit was driven by a hatred of
| Europeans or European nation states.
|
| You are absolutely delusional if you truly believe that.
| It was the raison d'etre of the entire UKIP cause.
| blibble wrote:
| unfortunately the electorate like the authoritarian nature of
| the two main parties
| ebbi wrote:
| Curious this has come up again just around the time where the UK
| government has signed a new strategic partnership with
| Palantir...
| bArray wrote:
| Dear Apple,
|
| I would like to remind you that many of the idiots pushing for
| this enjoy the use of iPhones and their encrypted services. I
| think that if the UI were to regularly remind the user that their
| data is no longer properly protected, that some of those idiots
| may be under more political pressure.
|
| Sincerely, UK person
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