UK makes new attempt to access Apple cloud data, FT reports

LONDON (Reuters) -The British government has issued a new order to Apple to create a backdoor into its cloud storage service, this time targeting only British users' data, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. Britain dropped a mandate for the iPhone maker to provide a backdoor that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American as well as British citizens, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in August. U.S. lawmakers had raised concerns that such a move could allow encrypted user data to be exploited by cyber criminals and authoritarian governments. APPLE SAYS IT WILL NEVER CREATE A BACKDOOR Apple, which has said it would never build a backdoor into its encrypted services or devices, appealed against the earlier order at the UK's Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), the IPT confirmed in April. A British government spokesperson said: "We do not comment on operational matters, including, for example, confirming or denying the existence of any such notices. "We will always take all actions necessary at the domestic level to keep UK citizens safe." Apple withdrew its Advanced Data Protection feature for UK users in February after the initial order.  The feature allows iPhone and Mac users to ensure that only they — and not even Apple — can unlock data stored on its cloud. "Apple is still unable to offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users, and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature," Apple said on Wednesday. "ADP protects iCloud data with end-to-end encryption, which means the data can only be decrypted by the user who owns it, and only on their trusted devices." The company said it was committed to offering users the highest level of security and it was hopeful it would be able to do so in the future in Britain.  "As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will," it added. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh and Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru and Paul Sandle and Sarah Young in LondonEditing by Tomasz Janowski, Sarah Young and David Goodman)

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