The UK government has lost a bid to keep the details of an ongoing court battle over data privacy with US tech giant Apple out of the public’s eye.

The UK government had asked Apple in January to give it access to encrypted customer data which is stored on Apple’s cloud storage services. But the tech giant refused to comply and, in February, announced it was going to withdraw its cloud storage encryption services from the UK market, a decision that took many users by surprise.

“Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users, and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature,” Apple said in a statement.

The UK government neither confirmed nor denied making such a demand. “We do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices,” Home Office sources have said.

But Apple took the matter to court, and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal on Monday confirmed the existence of a legal battle between the two sides.

In a public version of the judgment, the Tribunal said: “We do not accept the revelation of the bare details of the case would be damaging to the public interest or prejudicial to national security.”

The Tribunal has also confirmed receiving a letter from members of the US Congress in relation to the matter. The letter, which was sent in March, asked the tribunal to avoid any secrecy in the case and make any judgments public.

Calls for transparency

Attempts by the UK government to keep the existence and details of its notice to apple out of the public’s eye, on national security grounds, were met with criticism from various corners.

In reaction to the Tribunal’s confirmation of the case on Monday, Rebecca Vincent, interim director of campaign group Big Brother Watch, was quoted by the FT saying: “The Home Office’s order to break encryption represents a massive attack on the privacy rights of millions of British Apple users, which is a matter of significant public interest and must not be considered behind closed doors.”

The Tribunal has now confirmed that a number of UK media outlets, including the Financial Times, the BBC, The Guardian and others had asked for transparency around the case.

In February, a headline from the Financial Times‘ editorial board also asserted that Encryption ‘back doors’ are a bad idea, insisting that end-to-end encryption is the best safeguard against cyber criminals trying to exploit customers’ data.

Professor Alan Woodward, a cyber-security expert at Surrey University, had previously called the UK government’s move a “very disappointing development”. He told the BBC in February: “All the UK government has achieved is to weaken online security and privacy for UK-based users.”