Director Dominic Holden explores the recent dispute between Apple and the Home Office over the use of end-to-end encryption and potential backdoors into user data, in The Times.

Dominic’s article was published in The Times, 6 March 2025, and can be found here. 

Apple refuses to open the backdoor, but at what cost?

The Home Office’s demand for Apple to provide them with a ‘backdoor’, allowing access to users’ encrypted data, has been met by simple refusal by Apple. In protest, the tech giant instead opted to entirely withdraw from UK users the ability to protect their data using Apple’s most advanced encryption feature.

End-to-end encryption is double-edged – and the arguments on both sides are compelling.

On the one hand, it allows users to better protect their private data from hackers and other prying eyes. On the other, it can allow criminals to avoid law enforcement’s digital surveillance. It can also be a minefield for prosecution lawyers hampering their ability to obtain disclosure of the documents they need to build a case against terrorists and others who have threatened national security.

Like many tech companies, Apple faces a dilemma. It must respect the laws of the jurisdiction in which it operates. However, security and privacy are at the heart of its offering. Kowtowing to the UK government, risks opening the floodgates to other governments making similar demands in spite of Apple’s privacy commitments to its customers.

As this debate rages on, it remains to be seen whether Apple’s solution sufficiently placates the UK Government, or whether the next round will involve a demand that a backdoor is provided for all data.

The creation of a backdoor is, by its very nature, a risk. It creates a vulnerability which could be exploited by hackers. It is perhaps for this reason that Apple has made this decision – either you have encryption (with no backdoor), or you don’t have encryption at all.

This approach, however, misses a nuance.

Permitting users to encrypt their data is an effective tool against hackers and will ward off the vast majority of opportunistic hackers. Although creating a backdoor may create a vulnerability for the most sophisticated of hackers to exploit, this must surely be a better option than a blanket removal of such a powerful weapon users have at their disposal?

Understandably, many will bristle at the idea of the Government being able to gain access to their encrypted data. However, given that we do not live in a police state and the vast majority of us are not up to no good, a backdoor could help to keep the public safe – provided that there is robust, considered legislation and supervision from the English Courts.

For now, Apple users should take stock of their data and consider that which they would most regret falling into the hands of a hacker. There are still, after all, many (non-Apple) services available that allow for the secure storage and transmission of your data.

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