UK rights groups have asked a British court to open a hearing Friday on Apple’s bid to avoid building spy capability into its encrypted cloud storage.

A London court hearing, reported to be Apple's appeal against a British government order to create a "back door" to its encrypted cloud storage systems, was held in secret on Friday, with media not allowed to attend despite a formal request.

Reason reported on the United Kingdom's demand for access to any Apple user's digital information stored in its cloud storage service, iCloud. Since those data are end-to-end encrypted by default, this would require the tech giant to create an intentional vulnerability in its security protocols—the likes of which could be exploited by

The court order issued by the United Kingdom centers on the UK’s 2016 Investigatory Powers Act, which was invoked to demand Apple provide a backdoor into users’ encrypted iCloud backups.

Privacy rights groups have called on Apple's legal challenge to a secret U.K. government order asking it to backdoor an end-to-end encrypted (E2EE)

The British side reportedly said they would have to produce warrants for each individual data access request, so they will always have to be made as part of an investigation into serious crime.

A pair of human rights groups are challenging the UK government's shockingly intrusive order for Apple to create a backdoor into its encrypted user data, as first reported by Financial Times. Privacy International and Liberty have filed a legal complaint with the country's Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT),

UK and US officials have reportedly recently held private discussions regarding iPhone maker Apple’s (AAPL) encryption policies, according to

(Reuters) -British officials held private talks with their U.S. counterparts to resolve concerns that UK is trying to force Apple to build a backdoor into Americans' encrypted data, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday,