A group of bipartisan U.S. lawmakers urged British surveillance court chiefs to hold public hearings on Apple’s expected challenges to what is claimed to be a secret British government law.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and four other federal lawmakers say In a letter this week For the President of the British Court of Investigation (IPT), any hearing on the order “in the public interest” is not held secretly.
The legislators’ letter also said the so-called British order banned California’s Apple from saying “constitutionally protected” under U.S. law and hindered legislators’ ability to carry out congressional oversight.
Washington Post In February, the British government secretly ordered Apple to create a “back door”, Allows British authorities to access cloud storage data from any Apple customer around the world. It is reported Extract its advanced data protection iCloud data encryption capabilities From UK customers, not complying with backdoor orders.
this UK Court of InvestigationListened to legal cases related to the use of UK surveillance, which was scheduled to hear a private petition on Friday Court disclosure timeline. According to Wyden’s letter, the hearing was related to Apple.
Apple did not comment when it came into contact with TechCrunch on Friday.
To date, the UK government has declined to comment on operations, including “confirmation or denial of the existence of any such notice”.
It is not clear how many companies have received technology demand from the UK government.
According to a letter from lawmakers, Google “also recently told Senator Wyden’s office that the fact that disclosure would be prohibited if technical competency notifications were received.”
Two civil rights organizations, Liberty and Privacy International, are Challenge the British government’s backdoor order Submitted to IPT by law. The two also called on watchdogs to hold Apple’s appeal in public and join similar calls Earlier this week Organized by privacy rights.
