US lawmakers write to Home Secretary over Apple TCN demand

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast have cautioned the UK government about the potential risks associated with its Technical Capability Notice (TCN) issued to Apple under the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) requiring the company to create a back door into its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) iCloud encryption. In a letter addressed to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on Wednesday, the Republican lawmakers argued that such a backdoor could be exploited by cybercriminals and authoritarian governments.

Jordan and Mast highlighted that mandating a backdoor into end-to-end encrypted systems would introduce systemic vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious actors globally, not just in the UK, given the international reach of Apple's services. They urged Cooper to permit Apple to disclose the existence of the TCN to the US Department of Justice (DoJ), enabling an evaluation of its compliance with the US-UK agreement under the CLOUD Act, which prohibits orders requiring companies to decrypt data. 

The US lawmakers further argued against the weakening of encryption through TCNs, claiming that the move conflicts with international human rights standards, citing a European Court of Human Rights ruling that undermining encryption violates privacy rights.