Apple Slams ‘Unprecedented Overreach’ of Proposed Update to UK Privacy Laws
A revision to the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) could allow officials to quietly stop a company like Apple from rolling out certain features.
Apple is pushing back on a UK effort to give the government the power to veto privacy tools introduced by tech companies.
A proposed revision to the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) of 2016 could allow officials to quietly stop a company like Apple from rolling out certain features. It’s an unprecedented overreach by the government and, if enacted, the UK could attempt to secretly veto new user protections globally preventing us from ever offering them to customers, Apple tells the BBC in a statement.
Apple isn’t the only one sounding the alarm bell. Earlier this month, a group of civil liberties groups — including Big Brother Watch, Liberty, Open Rights Group, and Privacy International — said in a joint statement that the update would force technology companies, including those based overseas, to inform the government of any plans to improve security or privacy measures on their platforms so that the government can consider serving a notice to prevent such changes.
Last year, amid reports of updates to the IPA, Apple argued that the law’s existing authorities are broad and already pose a significant risk to the global availability of important security technologies, 9to5Mac reported at the time. Proposed updates may impose secret requirements on providers located in other countries and that apply to their users globally.
The UK’s intelligence agencies argue the updates will help the country better fight crime.
From hostile activity by states, to terrorists and criminal groups, all our adversaries are taking advantage of new technologies to further their aims, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said in a November statement. It is vital the UK is able to keep pace, which is why we are pleased that Parliament will debate a number of vital, targeted changes to the IPA.
Cupertino has been fighting the UK on its online privacy bills for years. As recently as 2023, the UK tried to pass the Online Safety Bill, which would give the UK government a backdoor into end-to-end encrypted chat apps like iMessage or FaceTime. Apple told the UK to get bent and that they would rather remove iMessage and FaceTime from the UK than comply. This caused the government to back down on its attempts to break end-to-end encryption.
