Google: UK Government Has Not Asked for Encryption Backdoor to Access User Data

The U.K. government has seemingly backed away from its earlier demand for Apple to establish a concealed backdoor for access to customer data worldwide, following significant opposition from the U.S. government. Nonetheless, a senator from the U.S. is probing whether other tech giants, like Google, have also been subjected to similar backdoor requests by U.K. officials.

Google has declined to answer the senator’s questions but has communicated to TechCrunch that it has not received any backdoor requests, marking the first instance in which Google has acknowledged it is not under a related U.K. mandate.

Earlier this year, The Washington Post revealed that the U.K. Home Office sought a confidential court mandate through the U.K.’s surveillance court, asking Apple to allow U.K. authorities access to the end-to-end encrypted cloud data of any global customer, including data saved in their iPhone and iPad backups. Apple ensures that only customers can access their data, without any access from Apple itself.

Under U.K. law, tech companies bound by secret surveillance court orders, such as Apple, are legally obliged to refrain from revealing the specifics or even the existence of such orders, although some information leaked earlier this year. Critics have condemned the order against Apple as “draconian,” asserting it could have broad ramifications for user privacy. Apple has since challenged the order’s legality.

In a recent correspondence with U.S. intelligence official Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday, Senator Ron Wyden, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, noted that though tech companies are unable to disclose whether they have received a U.K. order, at least one major technology entity has confirmed it has not.

Meta, which employs end-to-end encryption to protect messages on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, informed Wyden’s office on March 17 that it has “not received an order to backdoor our encrypted services, contrary to what was reported regarding Apple.”

Meanwhile, Google did not specify to Wyden’s office whether it had received a U.K. government order for accessing encrypted data, such as Android backups, only stating that if it were to have received a technical capabilities notice, it would be prohibited from sharing that detail, Wyden noted.

Google spokesperson Karl Ryan told TechCrunch, “We have never created any mechanism or ‘backdoor’ to circumvent end-to-end encryption in our products. If we claim a product is end-to-end encrypted, it genuinely is.”

When directly asked by TechCrunch, Ryan clarified, “We haven’t received a technical capabilities notice,” in reference to any U.K. surveillance order.

Wyden’s letter, first reported by The Washington Post and shared with TechCrunch, urged Gabbard to publicly disclose its “assessment of the national security risks associated with the U.K.’s surveillance laws and its reported secret demands on U.S. companies.”

This story has been updated with additional comments from Google, made in response to a TechCrunch inquiry.