The government’s position in its privacy and encryption row with Apple is “really strange” and “doesn’t make sense”, an expert has said.

Earlier this year, it was reported that the government had issued a notice under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, asking Apple for the ability to access data from Apple users.

This was said to include encrypted data protected by the tech giant’s advanced data protection (ADP) tool, an opt-in tool within Apple’s iCloud service which only an account holder can access, and is currently out of the reach of even Apple.

The iPhone-maker subsequently said that it was withdrawing the tool from use in the UK, turning it off as an option for those not already using it, and will introduce a process to move existing users away from it, and brought legal action against the Home Office.

Robin Wilton, senior director for internet trust at the Internet Society, a non-profit organisation which advocates for a safe and accessible internet for all, said he did not understand the government’s approach.

He said he believed it was unlikely the iCloud backups of Apple users would be a likely place for bad actors to keep records of their crimes.

“I don’t really see what they’re expecting to achieve by this,” he told the PA news agency.

“I know that the standard answer is ‘well, we’ll catch the dumb criminals’, but for anyone sufficiently motivated, this seems like a really simple thing to bypass.

“And how many people are actually inadvertently or otherwise storying evidence of criminal activity in their iCloud backups? To that extent, it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense to me.”

Parts of row are ‘really bizarre’

The government’s approach was widely criticised by online privacy campaigners and experts when reports of the request first appeared, and Mr Wilton said the UK’s stance could create trust issues in other areas of technology, including artificial intelligence (AI).

“I think there are some negative aspects to it as well which, in the context of this government, I find really bizarre,” he told PA.

“We’ve heard this government talk a lot about its expectations for AI and machine learning, to kickstart the UK economy.

“And the way I look at that is, I don’t think that any AI worth having is going to run exclusively on your device – it’s either going to make calls to a server or it’s actually just going to be processed on the server and it’ll fire a result back to you.

“So, what’s the status of the stuff that happens on the server? Is that yours or or is that under the custody of the company running the server?