Thu, 13 Mar 2025

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 Pressure grows to hold secret Apple data privacy hearing in public

Civil liberties campaigners have joined US politicians and the BBC in saying Friday's hearing should not be secret.

* US politicians, civil rights campaigners and the BBC are calling for a High Court hearing between Apple and the UK government over data privacy to be held in public
* The tech giant is taking legal action after the Home Office demanded access to customer data protected by its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) programme
* The UK government says it needs to be able to see the data if there is a national security risk, but Apple cannot currently access data stored this way
* An open letter from five US politicians has urged the Tribunal to remove the "cloak of secrecy" surrounding the row
* A group of civil liberties organisations has also written to the Tribunal president arguing that there is significant public interest in understanding the UK government's demands on Apple
* The hearing will be considered at a closed hearing of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal at the High Court, but the BBC and others are asking for it to be held in public
* ADP is contentious because it is end-to-end encrypted, meaning no-one can access files apart from their owner
* The matter relates to the security services and is scheduled to be held in private, but some argue this should not apply due to its major security implications.
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