Apple has confirmed it has filed a new legal complaint against the UK government at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the court that hears objections to the use of covert surveillance powers, reigniting its long-running dispute with the Home Office over access to encrypted user data.
The company has not disclosed the subject of the complaint, which was lodged last month, but the Financial Times has reported that it is a further challenge to a Home Office demand for so-called backdoor access to iCloud data protected by Apple's Advanced Data Protection feature, an opt-in service that applies end-to-end encryption to iCloud backups, Drive storage, photos and voice memos, meaning even Apple cannot access the contents.
BBC News, to which Apple confirmed the filing, reported that the government declined to comment on legal proceedings or what it called operational matters, but said in a statement that while the UK supports strong encryption and robust privacy protections, it is vital that law enforcement can access communications when "necessary and proportionate" to protect the public from terrorism, serious crime and child sexual abuse.
The government's demands were issued under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, which empowers the Secretary of State to serve technical capability notices. These are secret orders that can compel companies to provide the UK security services with the means to access customer data, and whose existence recipients are generally prohibited from disclosing.
The Home Office's first notice to Apple, issued in early 2025, prompted the company to withdraw Advanced Data Protection from new UK users in February 2025 and to bring its first tribunal challenge.
The government fought unsuccessfully to keep that litigation entirely secret, with the tribunal ruling in April 2025 that the bare details of the case could be made public, and the notice was later withdrawn after provoking anger among US politicians concerned about the data of American citizens. A new notice, which does not apply to US users, was issued in October last year.
Apple referred reporters to its earlier statement expressing grave disappointment that it still cannot offer Advanced Data Protection to new UK users, and repeating that it has never built a backdoor or master key to any of its products or services and never will.
Privacy campaigners, who are pursuing their own tribunal challenges to the government's use of secret notices, welcomed the new complaint. Ruth Ehrlich, director of external relations at Liberty, described the case as hugely important, with far-reaching implications for the public's privacy rights, arguing that end-to-end encryption is an essential security tool protecting personal data including bank details, health information, private conversations and images, and that opening a backdoor to that information "carries a wide range of risks".
Sir Brian Leveson, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, who provides independent oversight of the use of surveillance powers, has previously criticised media use of the term backdoor, pointing out that notices of this kind are only issued where the Secretary of State deems them necessary and proportionate, that the decision is independently reviewed and approved by a Judicial Commissioner, and that any subsequent requests for data require separate authorisation under the Act, itself subject to independent oversight.
