A court has blocked a British government attempt to keep secret a legal case over its demand to access Apple Inc. user data in a victory for privacy advocates.
The UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a special court that handles cases related to government surveillance, said the authorities’ efforts were a “fundamental interference with the principle of open justice” in a ruling issued on Monday.
The development comes after it emerged in January that the British government had served Apple with a demand to circumvent encryption that the company uses to secure user data stored in its cloud services.
Apple challenged the request, while taking the unprecedented step of removing its advanced data protection feature for its British users. The government had sought to keep details about the demand — and Apple’s challenge of it — from being publicly disclosed.
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Source: UK Effort to Keep Apple Encryption Fight Secret Is Blocked
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