Two American lawmakers want a British tribunal to shed light on a hidden demand that stops a US technology company from discussing a surveillance order with elected officials.
Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, and Representative Warren Davidson, a Republican, made the request in a letter to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the body that reviews UK surveillance demands.
Their letter lands ahead of a case management hearing next week in Apple’s complaint against the Home Office over a secret order covering end-to-end encrypted iCloud messages, photographs and stored data.
The clearance it received stops short of Capitol Hill. Officials at the Justice Department and in the Vice President’s office may be briefed; elected legislators may not.
The pair argue that weakening encryption in consumer software opens critical holes that foreign adversaries can exploit, and that non-disclosure orders must not stop companies from answering questions from elected representatives. They call Congress a co-equal branch and say another government should not dictate the balance of powers inside the US.
Britain’s first Technical Capability Notice arrived in January 2025 and reached users worldwide. After US pushback, including a warning from then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that the demand threatened Americans’ privacy, the order was withdrawn. A narrower replacement followed in October 2025, confined to UK users’ data.
Both notices target Advanced Data Protection, an optional setting that lets customers hold their own iCloud encryption keys. Apple pulled the feature from the UK in February 2025.
The tribunal is asked to weigh the constitutional consequences of such notices and to sit more openly, so independent experts can judge what is being demanded.
Privacy International, Liberty and two individual users are mounting a separate challenge that is expected to be joined to Apple’s case at a hearing on September 17.
