According to an Reuters report, the United Kingdom has formally stepped back from demanding that Apple build a so-called backdoor for accessing encrypted data belonging to the U.S. citizens.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced the shift in policy via a post on X stating that she had collaborated extensively with UK counterparts along with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance to reach the resolution.
This retreat marks a major moment of triumph for advocates of digital privacy who had raised alarms when the British government issued a secret directive earlier this year. That directive required Apple to create a method to access end-to-end encrypted user data stored on its servers.
The order prompted Apple to disable its Advanced Data Protection feature for UK users, a feature that had ensured only individuals themselves could unlock their iCloud backups. Legal experts and U.S. lawmakers swiftly condemned the mandate suggesting it could be exploited by cyber criminals or authoritarian regimes and might even violate the CLOUD Act.
Apple had already taken legal steps to contest the order at the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal and had begun rolling back ADP protection in the UK earlier this year. Now, with news of the UK backing off, there is hope that Apple could reintroduce full encryption features to its UK customers, though officials have not commented on whether this reversal will restore existing safeguards.
Observers see this as not only a win for Apple but a meaningful victory for global digital rights. Encryption experts have long warned that any government mandate requiring companies to insert a universal access point into secure systems would create a vulnerability that hackers could expose.
Still, while the UK’s decision signals a course correction, critics note that the law used to justify the original command continues to grant sweeping surveillance authority and that the underlying Investigatory Powers Act has not been reformed.
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