The UK is at it again
The UK Government made similar demands earlier this year, requiring blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account. The Electronic Frontier Foundation stated that demand utilizes a power known as a Technical Capability Notice (TCN) under the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act.
The TCN in question was first issued in January, forcing Apple to either create a backdoor or block its Advanced Data Protection feature — which turns on end‑to‑end encryption for iCloud — in the UK. A US intelligence chief claimed that the UK withdrew this request, but Advanced Data Protection remained unavailable for UK users.
Related: Ethereum core dev ‘safe and free’ after being detained in Turkey
Crypto roots in privacy activism
Bitcoin (BTC), and later the broader cryptocurrency industry, both owe their existence to early digital rights advocacy groups. Bitcoin was largely developed by so‑called cypherpunks, a pro‑cryptography group that famously opposed the US government’s classification of cryptography and prime numbers as munitions to control them.
This tradition continues today with activism carried on by the crypto community. Recently, Ethereum co‑founder Vitalik Buterin criticized the European Union’s proposed “Chat Control” legislation, which would require client‑side pre‑encryption scanning of messages for illegal content.
Buterin highlighted that backdoors built for law enforcement are “inevitably hackable” and undermine the safety of everyone. The Electronics Frontiers Foundation also warned that the UK’s new requests make everyone less safe.
Magazine: Can privacy survive in US crypto policy after Roman Storm’s conviction?