Britain gave Apple one choice in early 2025 – build a master key to every iCloud account on earth, or get out.
Now a US company wants to tell Congress exactly what Britain demanded next.
Jim Jordan just found out what Britain is hiding – and the Home Secretary won't let him say it.
Britain Built an iCloud Encryption Backdoor – and Tried to Keep It Secret
The UK's Labour government issued what it calls a "Technical Capability Notice" to Apple sometime in late 2024 – a secret legal order under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 demanding that Apple build a backdoor into iCloud's Advanced Data Protection feature.
Advanced Data Protection is the optional setting that encrypts your iCloud backups so thoroughly that not even Apple can read them.
Britain's original demand was sweeping – blanket decryption capability covering every iCloud user on the planet, not just British citizens, not just criminal suspects.
A backdoor is a deliberately built flaw that lets an intelligence agency read encrypted data without the user ever knowing – and it defeats end-to-end encryption entirely.
Apple refused to build it.
Rather than comply, Apple pulled Advanced Data Protection from the UK entirely in February 2025 – leaving British users with weaker privacy protections than anyone else on the planet.
Jim Jordan Demanded an Apple iCloud Briefing – Britain's Home Secretary Said No
An unnamed US technology company asked to brief members of Congress about a technical capability notice issued against it – widely believed to be Apple, though that remains unconfirmed.
That briefing required the permission of Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
Jordan met British Ambassador Sir Christian Turner in March, who indicated the briefing could happen.
Mahmood then refused.
"This denial is inconsistent with our understanding from Ambassador Turner and raises serious concerns about shared cooperation on these sensitive matters, particularly as Congress exercises its important oversight responsibilities," Jordan wrote in a letter first reported by the Telegraph.
He told Mahmood the refusal raised questions about the "trust and effective partnership between our two countries."
Jordan's letter demands Mahmood reverse the decision and allow the company to brief Congress – calling it a matter of transparency owed to an ally.
He asked her to "review this matter and grant the US company's request to speak with Congress about an alleged technical capability notice," which he said would "honour the representation made by the ambassador during our meeting and uphold the spirit of transparency and cooperation that is the foundation of our shared security relationship."
Under the Investigatory Powers Act, a company served with a notice cannot tell its customers, the press, or a foreign legislature anything – without the express written permission of the Home Secretary.
The UK Investigatory Powers Act Has Targeted Apple iCloud Data Before
The UK's Investigatory Powers Act is explicitly extraterritorial.
It gives the British government legal authority to force American tech companies to build surveillance capabilities into products used by people worldwide – and then gag those companies from telling anyone about it.
When Britain first issued the Apple order in January 2025, Tulsi Gabbard and JD Vance both pushed back hard – Vance warned the demand would create "systemic vulnerabilities" in systems used by American citizens.
Britain eventually told Washington in August 2025 it had dropped the demand for worldwide iCloud access.
Then in September 2025, the Home Office issued a new, narrower version of the same order – this time targeting British citizens' iCloud data specifically.
The UK government has never publicly confirmed or denied any of it.
That silence is the point.
Why Every Apple iCloud Encryption Backdoor Is a Security Risk for Americans
Washington is just catching up to what Jordan already knows.
When a foreign government forces a tech company to build a master key into encrypted American software, that key doesn't stay in London.
Security experts have been warning about this for years – once a backdoor exists, it can be found and exploited by anyone: hackers, hostile intelligence agencies, Chinese state actors.
The CALEA wiretap law the US passed in the 1990s mandated surveillance capabilities in American telecom systems – and Chinese hackers later used those exact backdoors to penetrate US networks.
Britain's Investigatory Powers Act runs the same play, at scale, targeting the most widely used encrypted storage platform in the world.
Jordan chairs the House Judiciary Committee – the same body that has run aggressive oversight of the FBI and US intelligence agencies.
He's now pointing that same scrutiny at an ally – because Mahmood's refusal to let a US company speak to Congress isn't just a diplomatic snub.
It means someone in the British government decided American lawmakers don't have the right to know what Britain is doing inside American software.
Sources:
- Ken Macon, "UK Encryption Backdoor Could Hit US Data, Jordan Warns," Reclaim The Net, June 8, 2026.
- "Trump Ally Warns UK Against Backdoor Spying on Americans," GB News, June 6, 2026.
- "House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan Warns British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood To Stop Backdoor Spying on US Citizens," The Gateway Pundit, June 6, 2026.
- "US Lawmakers Demand Briefing About UK's Push for Backdoor Access to Encrypted iCloud Data," MacTrast, February 26, 2026.
- "UK Agrees to Drop Its Apple Encryption Backdoor Request," TechRadar, August 2025.
- "Trump Ally Warns Labour May Be Spying on Americans," The Telegraph, June 5, 2026.
