On Tuesday, two U.S. lawmakers addressed a letter to President Donald Trump’s administration, calling for the termination of a data-sharing agreement with the United Kingdom and advocating for a renegotiation of the terms. This request follows reports indicating that the U.K. government has instructed Apple to create a backdoor for accessing encrypted user data.
Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio and chair of the Judiciary Committee, along with Arizona Republican Andy Biggs, who leads a subcommittee on surveillance, urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to dissolve the existing U.S.-U.K. agreement established under the CLOUD Act.
This agreement, which has been active since 2019 and was renewed last year, permits the U.K. government to request data from U.S. companies like Apple during criminal investigations, with the stipulation that such requests cannot target U.S. citizens.
In their letter, which was reviewed by Reuters, the lawmakers emphasized the need for Bondi to “renegotiate it to adequately protect American citizens from foreign government surveillance.”
In February, The Washington Post reported that the British government had mandated Apple to develop a system that would allow it to access end-to-end encrypted data uploaded by Apple users globally. The U.K. justified this unprecedented demand as a measure for crime prevention and the pursuit of criminals.
Later that month, Apple suspended its Advanced Data Protection feature for users in the U.K. and is currently appealing the order.
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The U.K. directive raised alarms among U.S. officials, who expressed concerns that it might breach the CLOUD Act agreement by enabling the U.K. to access data belonging to U.S. citizens.
CLOUD stands for “clarifying lawful overseas use of data.”
The lawmakers expressed their apprehension, stating, “We are … concerned that the order exposes all Apple users, including American citizens, to unnecessary surveillance and could enable foreign adversaries and nefarious actors to infiltrate such a backdoor.”
