UK could be forced to step back on data surveillance demands

Never say never until the sing-song begins, but it looks very much like the UK government might have to step back on its plans to snoop on people’s data with all the enthusiasm of any other rogue government, as the Trump administration isn’t happy about those plans.

What we know — and we don’t know much, given the slyly secretive way the UK Home Office is going about its freedom-eroding business — is that the decision to force Apple to create a state surveillance-friendly back door into its customers’ iCloud data is not going down well with the US. 

Surveillance state

As previously reported, the UK filed an order that demands Apple provide it with a back door to access customer data, a move that would break the encryption Apple, its customers, and global business relies on. Apple is resisting this authoritarian over-reach and has ceased to offer Advanced Data Protection services to iCloud customers in the UK as a result. It is also appealing the demand, though such is the nature of the rogue Orwellian UK state that the appeal is being heard behind closed doors and the public has no right to know the outcome.

That’s true even though the demand directly affects the UK public — as well as any iCloud user in the world.

That’s where the US steps in, as the demand directly impacts US users as well as US tech firms, and the protectionist administration is protesting strongly against the move. While the current UK administration does seem to love banning protests, the UK Home Office can’t ban the US from protesting.

The Home Office must back down

In what might be a hint that Apple has not yet prevailed in its appeal against the UK surveillance state, the Financial Times reports the UK government is attempting to find some way to moderate US concerns. Citing senior UK officials, the report claims, “The Home Office is basically going to have to back down.” 

The report also tells us:

Vice President J.D. Vance, who has warned that free speech and democracy are being threatened by Europe’s neo-liberal elites, is reportedly “very” annoyed at the UK’s attempt.

Multiple officials in the US administration have raised the matter, it has been described as an “egregious violation” of privacy, and President Donald J. Trump told the UK Prime Minister, “You can’t do this.”

The demand could impact technology partnerships with the US.

The latter is of concern, given that in a triumph of magical thinking, the UK government’s trade strategy is built around AI and data partnerships — even though it hasn’t put in place a tax system to ensure the profits don’t go elsewhere.

The UK, of course, claims it has robust safeguards designed to ensure these powers are not abused. But it is notable that the UK appears to be one of the most enthusiastic surveillance states in the world in terms of the number of data requests it makes per head of its population.

Perhaps those guards aren’t strong enough?

Encryption is good for you

Apple meanwhile says it will never build a back door into its products, raising the very real possibility that it will cease to offer cloud-based data services in the UK rather than comply with the demand.

Such a move would have a chilling impact on the way of life of Apple’s UK customers and create a tsunami of negative sentiment across UK business, particularly those high value businesses (financial services, health, technology) that most demand privacy and security.

Given that cutting support for some of the UK’s most vulnerable people has surprised every economist by not actually generating any significant growth, this deliberate move to damage digital business could be the coup de grace to send the economy over the cliff. And what makes the whole affair even more ridiculous is the complete and total lack of transparency that surrounds it, alongside what seems almost an ideological resistance on the part of the UK authorities to understand that there is no such thing as a safe back door into data; all you create by imposing one is an invitation to hackers to find and exploit that vulnerability.

In other words, along with all the other negative implications of the demand, the biggest problem is that once put in place, these back doors make us far less secure than before. We shall see what happens next — though it is perhaps truer to say that the state of UK freedom is best defined by the bitter realization that we may never learn what happens on this matter at all.

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