Apple Appeals U.K. Backdoor Demand to Investigatory Powers Tribunal ⇥ bbc.com

Zoe Kleinman, BBC News:

Apple is taking legal action to try to overturn a demand made by the UK government to view its customers’ private data if required.

The BBC understands that the US technology giant has appealed to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an independent court with the power to investigate claims against the Security Service.

Neither the BBC nor the Financial Times, which broke this news, has any details about the appeal, presumably because nobody can talk about this in public through official channels. According to both reports, it is possible this whole thing will be conducted in secret, too.

It looks like I, by way of Mike Masnick, was wrong to believe the only grounds on which Apple could fight this are financial. It turns out there is an appeals process which I could have found at any time — and in even more detail (PDF) — if I had double-checked. That is on me. However, in the first four years appeals were permitted on legal grounds, just two cases (PDF) were heard, with one being dismissed.

The way this is playing out is farcical. Nobody is legally permitted to discuss it, so we have only on-background leaks from Apple (almost certainly, I am guessing) and U.K. intelligence (maybe) to the same handful of reporters. This has advantages for both parties since they can craft a narrative through limited disclosures, but it means the rest of us can only speculate about how long Apple will be permitted to offer uncompromised end-to-end encryption worldwide.