Turns out Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private
New polling commissioned by the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) has found that Britons overwhelmingly reject giving the government access to their encrypted messages, with two-thirds saying they would not trust the current government or any future one with such power. The findings come as ministers continue pushing for access to encrypted communications under the Investigatory Powers Act, a stance that has already prompted Apple to withdraw its Advanced Data Protection feature for UK users after receiving a secret Technical Capability Notice, a dispute reports suggest is ongoing for British users specifically.
The survey of 2,000 British adults, conducted by Public First in April, found 93 percent believe they have a right to private online conversations and 89 percent think messages should only be accessed with a court order. Distrust of government access cuts across party lines, from 56 percent of Liberal Democrat voters to 75 percent of Reform voters, while just 12 percent supported secret orders barring companies from disclosing them, and 53 percent said the security risks of weakening encryption outweigh the benefits. Most respondents worried such access could create vulnerabilities for hackers or be abused, and many said it would make them more cautious about what they share online or more likely to self-censor criticism of officials.
- Two-thirds of Brits distrust any government with encrypted message access
- Support crosses party lines; only 12% back secret access orders
- Findings follow Apple's clash with UK over Advanced Data Protection
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Encryption scrambles messages so that only the people communicating can read them. Many messaging services use it to protect conversations from hackers and other outsiders, including the companies that carry the messages.
In the UK, the Investigatory Powers Act gives authorities powers to require help accessing communications during investigations. The government says access can help law enforcement tackle serious crime, while technology companies and privacy advocates have raised concerns about weakening encryption and the risks that could create.
Apple’s Advanced Data Protection is an optional feature that extends encryption to more information stored in iCloud. Its withdrawal for UK users brought the wider debate into focus: how to balance investigative powers with people’s privacy and the security of their online conversations.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Security and law enforcement advocates argue that end-to-end encryption, however well-intentioned, can create spaces beyond the reach of lawful oversight where child abuse material, terrorist plotting and serious organised crime can flourish undetected. They contend that a targeted, court-authorised mechanism to access specific communications, similar in principle to existing powers for phone taps or property searches, is a proportionate tool for democratic states to protect victims and prevent harm, and that technology companies should not be able to place themselves entirely outside the rule of law simply through engineering choices. On this view, the goal is not mass surveillance but ensuring that judicial and investigative powers keep pace with how criminals now communicate.
The case against
Privacy advocates and many ordinary citizens argue that any built-in access mechanism, no matter how well-guarded, is a structural vulnerability that can be discovered and exploited by hackers, hostile states or future governments with different values, meaning there is no such thing as a backdoor that only the good guys can use. They point to the strong cross-party public support for judicial safeguards and the right to private conversation as evidence that weakening encryption undermines trust in digital services, chills free expression and disproportionately endangers journalists, abuse survivors and dissidents who rely on secure communication, while doing little to stop determined criminals who can simply switch to unregulated tools.