Secret London tribunal to hear appeal in Apple vs government battle over encryption

A secret tribunal is due to meet at the High Court in London this week to hear tech giant Apple appeal against a Home Office order to compromise the encryption of data stored by its customers on the iCloud service worldwide.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) has taken the unusual step of publishing a notification of a closed-door hearing on Friday 14 March, days after leaks revealed that Apple was intending to appeal against the secret order.

Press and civil society groups are expected to petition the Tribunal, which rules on matters of national security, to hold the hearings in open court, given the important public interest surrounding the case and the fact the government’s order has been widely leaked.

The decision by home secretary Yvette Cooper to issue a Technical Capability Notice requiring Apple to give UK law enforcement and intelligence services “backdoor” access to data stored by Apple’s customers on the encrypted version of its iCloud service, has raised tensions between the UK and the US.

US lawmakers are expected to intervene further in the case after the US director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard – President Trump’s most senior advisor on intelligence and security - warned that any order from the UK that could put Americans’ privacy at risk would be a “clear and egregious violation”.

As a result of the UK government’s move, Apple in the UK has withdrawn its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) service which allows users to store data in end-to-end encrypted form on iCloud.

The decision is likely to expose people in the UK using Apple services to greater risk of cyber threat as they will no longer have the ability to encrypt their personal data on Apple’s iCloud with end-to-end encryption, though the service will remain available elsewhere in the world.

The president of the IPT, Lord Justice Rabinder Singh, and a senior High Court Judge, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson, have made themselves available at short notice to hear a case behind closed doors on the morning of 14 March, according to court listings.

The IPT hears national security cases in secure courts at the High Court in the Strand – the only central London venue authorised for national security cases, aside from a secure court on Chancery Lane used for immigration cases.

A series of leaks about the secret order issued by the UK have made it more difficult for the Home Office and security agencies to maintain a stance of neither confirming nor denying the move against Apple.

Privacy International, which has brought a number of cases against government agencies in the IPT, said the Apple hearings should be conducted in public.

Caroline Wilson Palow, legal director and general counsel at Privacy International said: “This is a very important debate to have in public, because we're talking about the security of our computer systems that can affect millions, if not billions, of people around the world, given the reported technical capability notice has global reach.”

Last month, over 100 cyber security experts, companies and civil society groups signed a letter calling for home secretary Cooper to drop the demands for Apple to create a backdoor that would allow government access to encrypted communications and data stored on Apple’s iCloud service.

Apple has previously said that despite withdrawing Advanced Data Protection from the UK 14 categories of data stored on Apples iCloud will still be end-to-end encrypted by default, including health data.

UK users will not be able to opt for more secure end-to-end encryption for iCloud Backup; iCloud Drive; Photos; Notes; Reminders; Safari Bookmarks; Siri Shortcuts; Voice Memos; Wallet Passes; and Freeform, a collaboration tool.