The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) has rejected government demands for complete secrecy over Apple’s legal challenge against a Home Office order requiring the tech giant to give UK law enforcement “backdoor” access to encrypted data stored by users of its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) service.
The tribunal today rejected arguments from the Home Office that public disclosure of even the “bare details” of the involvement of Apple or the Home Office would be damaging to national security.
Following weeks of government officials refusing to confirm or deny the court action, the IPT confirmed that Apple has filed a complaint challenging the secretary of state’s powers to issue technical capability notices (TCNs) under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.
The existence of the order, which was first reported by the Washington Post, has raised tensions between the UK and the US, attracting criticism from Donald Trump and US lawmakers that the order will allow UK law enforcement access to the encrypted data of US citizens using Apple’s ADP service in the US and other countries.
The tribunal’s decision follows legal submissions from Computer Weekly jointly with nine other media organisations, PA Media, members of US Congress, and civil society groups Big Brother Watch, Privacy International and Liberty, “strongly arguing in favour of open justice” and against the case being heard in secret.
“There has been extensive media reporting to the effect that the United Kingdon government has signed a technical capability notice requiring the claimant to be able to maintain access to its users’ data in decrypted form, so that such data is available to be passed to the intelligence agencies,” the tribunal said.
In the ruling issued today, tribunal chairman Lord Justice Singh and Justice Johnson rejected Home Office arguments that disclosing the “bare details of the case” – including publicly acknowledging the identity of Apple and the Home Office – would damage national security or prejudice the public interest.
They did not rule on whether future hearings in the case would be held in open court but left open the possibility that it “may well be possible” for some or all future hearings into the case to incorporate a public element with or without reporting restriction.
Apple brought the case against the Home Office after it received a technical capability notice from the Home Office requiring it to extend existing UK law enforcement powers to access encrypted data stored by users on Apple’s iCloud to users of its Advanced Data Protection service.
Apple responded to the order in February by withdrawing ADP from users in the UK, in a move that was criticised as exposing UK citizens to greater cyber threats. “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,” Apple said in a statement at the time.
According to the ruling, the Home Office wrote to the tribunal asking it not to disclose the existence of a planned tribunal hearing on 14 March into Apple’s complaint in court listings “so that the hearing would take place entirely in secret” for national security reasons.
Apple told the tribunal on 6 March 2025 that there was no reason not to list the fact that a hearing was taking place, even if Apple and the Home Office were not named, and that open justice required judicial proceedings to be published in the absence of compelling reasons to the contrary.
Tribunal president Lord Justice Singh and Justice Johnson agreed. “It would have been a truly extraordinary step to conduct a hearing entirely in secret without any public revelation of the fact that a hearing was taking place. That would be the most fundamental interference with the principle of open justice,” they said in the ruling.
The IPT listed a closed-door hearing on 14 March, without publicly disclosing the role of Apple or the Home Office.
The court heard arguments from the Home Office that the “bare details of the case would be prejudicial to national security”. Apple, with some support from the Counsel to the Tribunal, argued that the Home Office’s concerns were “overblown and unjustified”.
Singh and Johnson found in favour of Apple: “We do not accept that the revelation of the bare details of the case would be damaging to the public interest or prejudicial to national security.”
Claims from Privacy International and Liberty
Civil society groups Privacy International and Liberty have filed separate complaints, along with two individuals challenging the Home Office’s powers to issue technical capability notices against Apple and other technology companies. They have asked for their claims to be heard together with Apple’s claim in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
The tribunal judges found that there was no need to rule on Privacy International and Liberty’s application for the proceedings to be made public or to make a decision on whether or not to allow them to intervene in the Apple case before the Home Office had submitted a defence.
The tribunal said it was at least possible that the early stages of the litigation would involve the resolution of issues of law, which would mean, by implication, that the early hearings could be heard in open court. It was also possible that Apple’s claim could be stayed behind the Privacy International and Liberty case.
The court also acknowledged the receipt of a letter from US senators and members of Congress, but did not consider it necessary to rule on the issues raised. The letter seeks permission to discuss the technical capability notice issued by the Home Office with US Congress, but the court said it had no power to grant that request.
Public hearings may be possible
A submission from PA Media asked the tribunal to impose the least prescriptive measures possible, including holding a public hearing with reporting restrictions.
“It may well be possible for some or all future hearings to incorporate a public element, with or without reporting restrictions. It is not possible to rule on that at this stage,” the court said.
Commenting on the ruling, a Home Office spokesperson said the government could neither confirm nor deny the existence of the TCN.
“The Investigatory Powers Act and technical capability notices allow the UK to maintain existing and long-standing counter-terrorism and serious crime investigative capabilities in the face of fast-changing technology, especially when we know that terrorists and child abusers organise and seek to hide evidence of their crimes online,” they said.
“TCNs themselves do not directly provide access to data – relevant targeted warrants and authorisations must also be in place. Nor do TCNs extend powers to obtain access to data; their purpose is to ensure that those existing powers can continue to be exercised effectively,” the spokesperson added.
The Home Office’s order to break encryption represents a massive attack on the privacy rights of millions of British Apple users, which is a matter of significant public interest and must not be considered behind closed doors Rebecca Vincent, Big Brother Watch
Rebecca Vincent, interim director of Big Brother Watch, said the judgment was a welcome step in the right direction and “effectively chipped away” at the pervasive climate of secrecy surrounding the case.
“The Home Office’s order to break encryption represents a massive attack on the privacy rights of millions of British Apple users, which is a matter of significant public interest and must not be considered behind closed doors,” she said.
Jim Killock, executive director of Open Rights Group, said the case was bigger than the UK and Apple, and would have implications for millions of people around the world.
“Such an important decision cannot be made behind closed doors and we welcome the IPT’s decision to bring parts of the hearing into the open so that there can be some public scrutiny of the UK government’s decisions to attack technologies that keep us safe online,” he said.
Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO of Index on Censorship, said the judgment did not “stipulate that the case will be held in the open moving forward – as it should be – only that we can know the ‘bare details’. We welcome this news, but we continue to fight for full transparency here.”
The media companies jointly challenging the secrecy of Apple’s appeal in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal are Associated Newspapers Ltd, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Computer Weekly, Financial Times Group, Guardian News & Media, News Group Newspapers, Reuters News and Media, Sky News, Telegraph Media Group and Times Media. PA Media has filed a separate challenge.
According to the judgment, neither Apple nor the Home Office have confirmed or denied that media reporting of the technical capability notice issued against Apple is accurate. “This judgment should not be taken as an indication that the media reporting is or is not accurate,” it said.