Apple U-turned on iCloud end-to-end encryption plan following FBI complaints

Apple backed down to avoid further disputes with law enforcement and over fears customers could be completely locked out of accounts, say sources

Apple ditched its plans for end-to-end encryption to enable iPhone users to secure their iCloud backups following complaints from the FBI.

That's according to an investigation by Reuters, which cites six anonymous sources who claim that the FBI argued that such a move would hamper its investigations.

At the time, too, President Trump had claimed that the company's move would help shield "killers, drug dealers and other violent criminal elements" from justice. Behind the scenes, adds Reuters, the company has also aided the FBI, turning over iCloud backups on request in response to serious criminal investigations.

Apple sources indicated that the company decided that it might entail more complaints from customers locked-out of their iCloud accounts

The company had announced plans two years ago to encrypt backups as part of a ratcheting up of end-user security. Under that plan, Apple would no longer hold the decryption key. That would mean that law enforcement agencies could no longer compel the company to provide access to accounts backed up on its infrastructure.

According to the FBI sources quoted by Reuters, Apple backed down based on the law enforcement arguments, and a desire not to pick too many fights with the FBI, and other agencies.

However, Apple sources indicated that the company decided that it might entail more complaints from customers locked-out of their iCloud accounts, which it would no longer be able to help.

In addition, the company complies with around 90 per cent of requests from the FBI and other US law enforcement agencies, while they, in turn, often resort to hacking software exploiting security flaws to break-into alleged miscreants' iPhones directly.

The dispute between Apple and the FBI over encryption even reach Congress, where FBI director James Comey warned that "the logic of encryption will bring us, in the not too distant future, [to a situation] where all conversations and papers and effects are entirely private. There's a lot of good about this, a lot of benefits".

Apple declined to comment on the reports.