UK once again demands backdoor to Apple's encrypted cloud storage
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
I would like to remind you that many of the idiots pushing for this enjoy the use of iPhones and their encrypted services. I think that if the UI were to regularly remind the user that their data is no longer properly protected, that some of those idiots may be under more political pressure.
Sincerely, UK person
[Keep my messages encrypted]
[Send a copy of my messages to government authorities for checking]
Then when you choose the first one, disable the button with a toast saying "local laws do not allow this option, please choose another".
I feel like the toothpaste is already out of the tube on effective, low effort, decentralized encryption, but there's plenty of $$$ government contracting dollars to be made integrating government systems with megacorp datastorage, so there will always be someone else pushing to make this happen.
To answer your question, the other solution is to do what I did in response to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016: leave the country.
international treaties have no effect under UK law, unless Parliament decides to pass an Act containing its provisions
this is called dualism
for example, the effect of all EU law in the UK was dis-applied with an Act of Parliament, by a single line:
> The European Communities Act 1972 is repealed on exit day.
(European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018)
Indeed, all I claim is that leaving treaties comes with consequences that mean they stick, hard to change in practice even when it's theoretically just another law that only needs a parliamentary majority to delete.
Functional closest equivalent, not identical in every detail.
The core problem is the people writing the laws are know-nothing busy bodies who write crap laws and then cause massive problems, and we've demonstrated over the last 18 months that you can fire literally 70% of the UK Parliament, replace them all and still end up with the same rules written by the same know-nothing busy bodies.
To paraphrase an adage I've forgotten: you can skim as much shit as you like off the Thames, it'll still be a filthy river.
Is there any information about this demand, was it in the form of a TCN?
Both Apple and the Home Office are restricted from discussing TCNs by law.
Didn't Apple win a court case recently where they could openly discuss why they removed ADP in the UK?
I think you can use a VPN to turn it on if youre blocked, btw
The Reform party, a far-right party who tell us they will retract all these laws; not that I believe them.
Someone who pushed for Brexit, supports Hard Euroscepticism (yet has an European wife) running a party promoting that human-made climate change isn't a thing, want "illegal" immigrants thrown out of the UK, removal from Europe's Convention of Human Rights is a party I don't want to imagine being in power.
With regards to my online activities, I am already supposedly a terrorist for using Tor.
It happens to us all.
> Someone who pushed for Brexit, supports Hard Euroscepticism, (yet has an European wife) [..]
I think the largest push was for sovereignty of the nation, which is a huge win for democracy. The UK shouldn't have people making important decisions that cannot be unelected.
I don't think that Brexit was driven by a hatred of Europeans or European nation states.
> [..] and runs a party promoting that human-made climate change isn't a thing, [..]
Not sure that this is the case, I think the case being made is that net-zero is being chased religiously at the cost of economic growth. If the UK want to be a leader in AI for example, then the UK needs access to cheap reliable energy.
> [..] wants immigrants thrown out of the UK is a party I don't want to imagine being in power.
I think to be clear, they want economically unproductive immigrants and criminals out of the UK. This seems to be the policy of all the major parties currently.
> With regards to my online activities, I'm already a terrorist for using Tor.
As they say whilst taking your privacy away: "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear".
Quoting Wikipedia here,
> A late 2024 poll done by YouGov found that Reform UK voters are twice as likely as the general public, to believe that climate change is not caused by human activity
> In February 2025, Tice said: "There's no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change climate change.
> In April 2025 Farage said that the current government's net zero policy was "lunacy" and that "[t]his could be the next Brexit – where Parliament is so hopelessly out of touch with the country.”
> In July 2025, Reform UK's Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, Andrea Jenkyns, said, "Do I believe that climate change exists? No."
Tice being the Deputy. Of course the First isn't going to admit to it, but if the second implies it; that pretty much sets the tone of the parties agenda. With the added Mayor I would conclude that the party is anti-climate change.
> If the UK want to be a leader in AI for example, then the UK needs access to cheap reliable energy.
The UK will never be a leader again, we were once but threw it all away to privatisation and stripping of industries. You're only the leader when you actually produce, we rarely do that anymore.
Besides "cheap reliable" is an oxymoron. Anything cheap is not reliable, anything reliable isn't cheap. Nuclear = Reliable but expensive, Renewable = Cheap but unreliable (in comparison).
Where was the best place to obtain that; the best place was the EU! We decided to axe that, bravo.
> I think to be clear, they want economically unproductive immigrants and criminals out of the UK.
Why isn't there focus on national citizens, or can we do no harm?
That primary focus is bogus. I don't rule out that immigrants are not committing crimes, I don't have time to source the stats so I'll play the devils advocate and say maybe. Maybe it's more, maybe it's less but crime is crime.
If it is truly immigrants, then why have we not been tackling immigration laws? Why is it suddenly a concern now when crimes have been reported and ignored for decades? The government(s) have documented cases of these gang-crimes for years.
Instead we cut funds to the police force, special services so instead of tackling proper immigration these governments swept them under the rug and instead rile folk for the sake of ?. Throw the blame of that it is immigrants when it's the corruption, stir the pots of "Your from X go back to your own country" leading to uneducated dimwitted-ness of "Your of different culture go back to your own country!" and push votes for your new corrupt agenda.
We will however go for the innocent folk who have really done nothing wrong though. I want privacy as the next person, "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is as like "when the fun stops, stop!" a sponsored gambling anti-gambling advertisement campaign. When your an addict, there is no fun to stop.
I enjoy walking around my apartment naked when I wake up which is why I own curtains. The government can't watch me apart from my WiFi signal. McAdverts can't advertise to me boxer briefs and Doritos for breakfest; we did have window tax once, I'm sure curtain tax will be a thing too soon.
I think that Reform attract a variety of views, the party is formed by the politically homeless. The Mayor of London being anti-Trump for example does not represent Labour's official position, which is one with open arms for Trump.
> The UK will never be a leader again, we were once but threw it all away to privatisation and stripping of industries. You're only the leader when you actually produce, we rarely do that anymore.
It could be a leader again, but it will require large political will. Part of being a leader is for the UK to not have rules dictated to it. The EU is really struggling with economic productivity itself, largely due to the red tape that the UK is now well positioned to remove.
The UK should produce more. From a climate and tariff perspective, it should not be cheaper to get something made with few/little environmental standards in China and then shipped across the world. It is also mad that the climate activists do not jump on this point more.
> Besides "cheap reliable" is an oxymoron. Anything cheap is not reliable, anything reliable isn't cheap. Nuclear = Reliable but expensive, Renewable = Cheap but unreliable (in comparison).
The UK had a hybrid just going back a few years that was more reliable and cheaper, and even that could have been better optimised. The UK should not have higher energy costs than the EU, for example.
> Why isn't there focus on national citizens, or can we do no harm?
National citizens are a problem, but they are a problem the UK is stuck with. The UK should not be importing the economically unproductive from elsewhere too. At the same time, a great focus will need to be applied to national citizens that are economically unproductive. Some 3 million 16-64 are apparently permanently sick and unable to work [1].
> That primary focus is bogus. I don't rule out that immigrants are not committing crimes, I don't have time to source the stats so I'll play the devils advocate and say maybe. Maybe it's more, maybe it's less but crime is crime.
Foreign nationals make up 12% of UK prisons [2], and the argument is that is should be ~0%.
> If it is truly immigrants, then why have we not been tackling immigration laws? Why is it suddenly a concern now when crimes have been reported and ignored for decades? The government(s) have documented cases of these gang-crimes for years.
The UK seems to have failed to introduce any real barrier to immigration into the UK since Tony Blair. The concern has been there for a long time, there was just no political will to deal with it. Immigration levels have continued to increase and the average person sees HMOs dispersed throughout the UK and on their doorstep.
> We will however go for the innocent folk who have really done nothing wrong though. I want privacy as the next person, "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is as like "when the fun stops, stop!" a sponsored gambling anti-gambling advertisement campaign. When your an addict, there is no fun to stop.
Being innocent is not an argument to stay in the UK. The UK will need to figure out how to keep immigrants that are productive and integrated.
> I enjoy walking around my apartment naked when I wake up which is why I own curtains. The government can't watch me apart from my WiFi signal. McAdverts can't advertise to me boxer briefs and Doritos for breakfest; we did have window tax once, I'm sure curtain tax will be a thing too soon.
Well, privacy is valued, and maybe privacy is a lucrative new source of tax revenue. Yes you may have your curtains and your encrypted messages, but it's going to cost you.
[1] https://wecovr.com/guides/uk-sickness-crisis-1-in-5-britons-...
[2] https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04...
You are absolutely delusional if you truly believe that. It was the raison d'être of the entire UKIP cause.
Voting will continue until the correct result is achieved [1].
> And after accusing the brexiters of just being anti immigration, still nothing was done about immigration, because fuck what people want if its not what better people want.
This is exactly it, they simply hold the public in contempt and believe they know better. The public has been extremely clear about it's voting intentions post-Blair.
> Now we have constant riots, pork pie patriots in their hundreds of thousands gathering in London, and useless promises after 20 years of lies and broken promises now that the demographics have changed massively creating a situation where one has to either do nothing or do something unsettling to revert any of this.
If only something was done 20 years ago when people originally aired their concerns. This situation was entirely foreseeable and avoidable.
I think "pork pie patriots" is a very unfair characterisation, and it's that sort of denigration of them and their opinions that has led to where we are. They have legitimate concerns about the direction the UK has gone in.
> Its like fascism for cowards.
Are you talking about the government or the people opposing the government?
[1] https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/235138
That's exactly the point, the government want to remove your ability to ask. Every quango, NGO, committee, foreign court, etc, is a method to stop the citizen from deciding their own fate via elected officials.
Then you should be able to easily find sources for that point?
Bare in mind that UKIP, Reform and the right-wing in the UK hold the likes of Churchill and the UK's efforts in WWII against the Nazis as a point of national pride. The UK sacrificed almost everything to save Europe, and those people would do it all over again.
> Source: I watched the campaigns while living in the UK, with open eyes [..]
So there is no source then. It's just your opinion, which of course you are free to have, but it's not authoritative or peer reviewed.
> [..] rather than some insane belief that what Farage and UKIP were saying out loud was actually not what they believed.
So your belief is that Nigel Farage, who has been a "prominent Eurosceptic since the early 1990s" [1] and was "was first elected to the European Parliament (EP) in 1999" [1], has been hiding secret evil beliefs whilst holding a public office for more than 25 years. And not once did he slip whilst on record and say the quiet part aloud? And somehow you, a mind reader of his most inner thoughts, can correctly identify his true objective?
I think delusion is yours.
https://brilliantmaps.com/help-europe-crisis/
Most neighbourly countries: Romania, UK, and Poland (no country in Europe they weren’t willing to help).
For the record I voted remain as a eurosceptic, but I know a lot of people who voted leave and not one is an overweight, red-faced, lager-swilling, hateful person who foams at the mouth at the mere mention of europe and its bureaucracy.
From where I’m looking, they are to the left of the centre-right Conservatives. For example, Reform propose lifting the 2-child benefit cap, whereas the Tories would keep it.
Reform’s proposed changes to “indefinite leave to remain” policy would put the UK in-line with many of our neighbours in the EU. There’s nothing “far right” about a country having borders, and having a national (rather than international) welfare offering.