Apple is said to have challenged the order to disable Advanced Data Protection features. This is a repeat of what happened in the case with the FBI. What can happen and what are the values and opportunities in the field by Andrea Monti – Originally published in Italian by Italian Tech – La Repubblica
The Financial Times has published the news of the legal action taken by Apple against the order of the British authorities to make accessible the data stored by users on iCloud and protected by features that offer a high level of security. We are therefore faced with a new legal case involving Apple that is reminiscent of the one that was discussed in 2016 all the way up to the US Supreme Court.
At the time, the FBI asked Apple to cooperate in removing the security from the iPhones used in the San Bernardino massacre. Apple offered its support but was not willing to compromise the security of iOS, hence the lawsuit which, from a procedural point of view, ended in nothing because while awaiting the sentence the FBI independently found a way to overcome the security of the seized iPhones.
Now, as then, there is no evidence that Apple has inserted backdoors in its systems, the community of security experts has never found one, and on several occasions, including the English case, the company has firmly denied the circumstance.
The appeal to the English courts
Regarding the news of the lawsuit filed by Apple, to date the content of the appeal presented before the English courts is unknown, therefore it is only possible to hypothesise that it has the same content as that discussed before the UScourts and summarised in the public position taken at the time by Tim Cook. We will therefore have to wait and see if the English judges follow the approach of the US courts or not.
The war on encryption is spreading to the European continent
However, the English front is not the only one open in the war on encryption, which broke out in the USA in 1990.
In 2023, it was made public that Spain intended to ban end-to-end encryption, a position shared by other countries, and France has long been implementing a series of concrete initiatives to limit the use of strong encryption by private individuals. Since last January 2025, the Senate has been discussing a bill to make backdoors in messaging applications mandatory. But previous cases such as the one involving the CEO of Telegram and, before that, those that led to the dismantling of the secure messaging platforms Encrochat and Sky ECC, show how combatting the free availability of such technologies has become a priority for the French government.
Is peace possible, and between whom?
The war against encryption is growing in intensity and has not yet reached its peak, but sooner or later it will have to come to an end; however, in order to make peace, we must first understand the opposing forces.
For decades, the opponents of legal obligations to weaken encryption were mainly civil rights activists, with little exposure from industry.
Over time, however, encryption has become the basis of the entire infrastructure that makes public and private services work and therefore —today— the greatest interest in protecting the robustness of encryption lies with the industry sector which, thanks to astute marketing strategies, has embraced the narrative of ‘digital rights’.
Therefore, unless European states decide to go all the way without opening any negotiations, it will be the negotiation with Big Tech that will define the balance point on the weakening of citizens’ rights; which shows – if there was still any need – how strong the public dependence on Big Tech is and how important “fundamental rights” really are.