Apple has launched a fresh legal challenge against UK government demands to provide police and intelligence services with access to encrypted communications stored on the company’s iCloud service.
The company filed a complaint at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in April challenging a secret Home Office order requiring it to make UK customers’ iCloud data accessible to government agencies, according to new court filings.
The move comes a year after the Home Office dropped a wider order that could have allowed the UK to access messages and data stored by Apple’s customers in the UK, the US and other countries.
The existence of the order sparked a transatlantic row between the UK, the Trump administration and lawmakers in the US, leading the UK to abandon the proposals last year.
Apple now seeks to challenge a second technical capability notice (TCN) issued by the Home Office requiring Apple to provide access to encrypted data, but only for British citizens.
Advanced encryption
The dispute centers on Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) Service which allows Apple users to encrypt their backed-up data using private encryption keys that are inaccessible to Apple.
Apple withdrew the ADP service from UK customers in February 2025, rather than comply with the Home Office’s demands.
Apple’s latest legal challenge follows legal challenges issued by the campaign groups Privacy International and Liberty, and two individuals, over the lawfulness of the technical capability notice.
A case management hearing has been scheduled for September to discuss how to handle the parallel complaints.
Access to secure encrypted data
The government first issued a technical capability notice to Apple in January 2025, requiring it to provide warranted backdoor access to messages and data stored by Apple users worldwide.
The notice extended the ability of UK law enforcement to access encrypted data stored by users on Apple’s iCloud under surveillance warrants to include users of its secure ADP service, which is fully end-to-end encrypted.
The government argued that it needed to be able to obtain warrants to access individuals’ private encrypted data on Apple’s iCloud service, including data protected by ADP, in the interests of national security and tackling crime.
According to the court documents, the TCN allows the interception of communications and multiple categories of data stored in Apple’s iCloud backup service.
It requires Apple to remove electronic protection applied to the data where it is “reasonably practicable” and to provide access to data stored on Apple’s Advanced Data Protection and iCloud services under a warrant.
Privacy International confirmed that a case management hearing would take place in September.
A spokesperson added: “We are happy to learn that Apple is once again challenging the UK’s regime of secret orders. While we don’t know the substance of Apple’s claim, if it relates to the previously reported orders aimed at undermining the security of Apple’s iCloud storage, then Apple’s claim, alongside ours and Liberty’s, is crucially important to preserving all of our privacy and security.”
