Liberty and Privacy International complaint against Government’s ‘backdoor’ access to Apple data to be heard by Tribunal

Liberty and Privacy International, represented by human rights lawyers at law firm Leigh Day, had said that the Government’s attempt to create a ‘backdoor’ to billions of people’s data, including personal messages and documents, would mean that sensitive data would be at risk of being accessed by hackers and oppressive governments.

Liberty and Privacy International warned this would particularly impact marginalised groups, such as political dissidents and religious and LGBT+ communities, who could be targeted or put under surveillance.

At a hearing on 14 March 2025, the Government had requested that basic details of Apple’s own case challenging the Technical Capability Notice (TCN) issued to it be kept secret. The Government wanted even the fact of the case and the identities of the parties to be kept secret. Today’s judgment rejects the request and makes clear that Apple was the Claimant. 

The Tribunal, in its judgment, said it will now consider next steps on both Liberty and Privacy International’s case, as well as Apple’s, and to decide whether it makes Liberty and Privacy International’s the lead case. 

The TCN, apparently issued under section 253 of the Investigatory Powers Act, requires Apple to remove or modify certain protections from material stored by Apple users on an advanced encrypted version of its cloud service, iCloud, giving the UK Government back-door access to that data. 

Seemingly, rather than comply with the TCN, Apple has removed the Advanced Data Protection (ADP) encryption for UK users, which users had been able to opt into using since it was introduced in December 2022. 

Akiko Hart, Director at Liberty, said:  

“We welcome the Tribunal’s judgment to hear our challenge to the legality of this notice against Apple, but also any similar notice that would weaken global privacy rights.  

“End-to-end encryption is an essential security tool that protects our personal data, including our bank details, health information, private conversations and images. It’d be an entirely reckless and unprecedented move from the UK Government to open up a back door to this data, and one that will have global consequences. 

“Notices like these pose enormous threats to our privacy rights that we should all be concerned about, putting human rights activists, religious and LGBT+ communities, political dissidents and journalists at particular risk.” 

Ioannis Kouvakas, Senior Legal Officer and Assistant General Counsel at Privacy International, said:  

“We welcome the Tribunal's rejection of the UK government's push for ultimate secrecy on this important case. Executive decisions affecting the privacy and security of billions of people globally should be open to legal challenge in the most transparent way possible. We will be moving forward with our complaint before the IPT and we will be seeing the UK Government in court."

Tessa Gregory, partner at Leigh Day, said:  

“Our clients wholeheartedly welcome the Tribunal’s rejection of the Home Secretary’s claim that national security would be threatened by publication of even the bare details of this case, including the names of the parties – Apple Inc and herself.

"Following today’s ruling, our clients will be doing their utmost to ensure the Home Secretary’s decision-making and her powers to make a technical capability notice are scrutinised in public in open court.”