Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard suggests UK broke agreement in secretly asking Apple to build iCloud backdoor

According to a letter seen by 9to5Mac, the Trump Administration is investigating whether the UK may have broken a bilateral agreement when secretly demanding that Apple build a global backdoor into iCloud. Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard wrote in a letter responding to Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona that she was not made aware of the UK’s secret demand by her UK counterparts. However, she suggested, the UK government may have broken a bilateral privacy and surveillance agreement in making the demand. For background, media reports claim that the British government made an undisclosed demand that Apple create a security backdoor that would allow authorities to access all encrypted customer data, not just local data on a specific iPhone. Per reporting, Apple could not reveal that such a security backdoor into iCloud was created. Rather than quietly comply and risk customer data security globally, Apple announced that it remo ... Read full article.