Google Says Uk Government Has Not Demanded An Encryption Backdoor For Its Users’ Data

The U.K. authorities is reportedly backing down from its earlier request that Apple builds a concealed backdoor allowing its authorities entree to customer information worldwide, pursuing a harsh rebuke from nan U.S. government. But 1 U.S. legislator wants to cognize if different tech giants, for illustration Google, person besides received concealed backdoor demands from nan U.K. government. 

Google refused to reply nan lawmaker’s questions, but has since confirmed to TechCrunch that nan exertion elephantine has not received a backdoor demand.

Earlier this year, The Washington Post reported that nan U.K. Home Office sought a concealed tribunal bid successful nan U.K.’s surveillance court demanding that Apple allows U.K. authorities to entree nan end-to-end encrypted unreality information stored connected immoderate customer successful nan world, including their iPhone and iPad backups. Apple encrypts nan information successful specified a measurement that only customers, and not Apple, tin entree their information stored connected its servers.

Under U.K. law, tech companies taxable to concealed surveillance tribunal orders, specified arsenic Apple, are legally barred from revealing specifications of an order, aliases nan beingness of nan bid itself, contempt details of nan request publically leaking earlier this year. Critics called nan concealed bid against Apple “draconian,” saying it would person global ramifications for users’ privacy. Apple has since appealed nan legality of nan order.

In a caller letter sent to apical U.S. intelligence charismatic Tulsi Gabbard connected Tuesday, Sen. Ron Wyden, who serves connected nan Senate Intelligence Committee, said that while tech companies cannot opportunity whether they person received a U.K. order, astatine slightest 1 exertion elephantine has confirmed that it hasn’t received one.

Meta, which uses end-to-end encryption to protect personification messages sent betwixt WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, told Wyden’s agency connected March 17 that nan institution has “not received an bid to backdoor our encrypted services, for illustration that reported astir Apple.”

Google, for its part, would not show Wyden’s agency if it had received a U.K. authorities bid for accessing encrypted data, specified arsenic Android backups, “only stating that if it had received a method capabilities notice, it would beryllium prohibited from disclosing that fact,” said Wyden.

Google spokesperson Karl Ryan told TechCrunch successful a statement: “We person ne'er built immoderate system aliases ‘backdoor’ to circumvent end-to-end encryption successful our products. If we opportunity a merchandise is end-to-end encrypted, it is.” 

When explicitly asked by TechCrunch, Ryan said: “We haven’t received a method capabilities notice,” referring to immoderate U.K. surveillance order.

Wyden’s letter, first reported by The Washington Post and shared pinch TechCrunch, called connected Gabbard to make nationalist its “assessment of nan nationalist information risks posed by nan U.K.’s surveillance laws and its reported concealed demands of U.S. companies.”

This communicative was updated pinch further remark from Google, shared successful consequence to a TechCrunch inquiry.