Vice President JD Vance, center, behind French President Emmanuel Macron and President Donald Trump during a multilateral meeting with European leaders in the East Room of the White House on Monday, Aug. 18, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The U.S. official further told Fox News Digital that the vice president "took a strong interest in this issue because of his background in technology, his concern for privacy, and his [sincere] commitment to maintain a strong U.S.-U.K. relationship."
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard said in an X post on Monday that she, alongside President Donald Trump and Vance, had been working "closely with our partners in the U.K." over the past several months "to ensure Americans' private data remains private and our Constitutional rights and civil liberties are protected."
"As a result, the UK has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a ‘back door’ that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties," Gabbard wrote.
Fox News Digital reached out to Apple and the British Home Office for comment but did not immediately hear back.
In February, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., penned a letter to the then-newly confirmed DNI, informing Gabbard of recent press reports that the U.K.’s home secretary "served Apple with a secret order" at the start of the year, "directing the company to weaken the security of its iCloud backup service to facilitate government spying."
The directive reportedly required Apple to weaken the encryption of its iCloud backup service, giving the British government "blanket capability" to access customers’ encrypted files. Reports further stated that the order was issued under the U.K.’s Investigatory Powers Act 2016, commonly known as the "Snoopers’ Charter," which does not require a judge’s approval, according to the letter previously obtained by Fox News Digital.
Wyden, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Biggs, who chairs a House Judiciary subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, informed Gabbard that Apple "is reportedly gagged from acknowledging that it received such an order, and the company faces criminal penalties that prevent it from even confirming to the U.S. Congress the accuracy of these press reports." The letter focused on the threat of China, Russia and other adversaries spying on Americans.
At the Munich Security Conference in February, Vance, meanwhile, said that the threat he worried about the most when it comes to Europe was not China, Russia or "any other external actor," but rather "the threat from within the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America." Vance specifically cited the case of Adam Smith-Connor, a British Army veteran and physiotherapist, who was prosecuted under the U.K.’s "buffer zone" or "safe access zone" laws around abortion clinics. British police confronted him for silently praying outside the clinic.
The vice president also called out Europe more broadly for stifling opposition speech.
Protesters are detained in Nottingham, central England, on Aug. 3, 2024 during the "Enough is Enough" protest held in reaction to the fatal stabbings of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event in Southport on July 29. (DARREN STAPLES/AFP via Getty Images)
The U.K. has been increasingly cracking down on British citizens for opposition commentary, especially online posts and memes opposing mass migration. In August 2024, as riots broke out in the U.K. after a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event left three girls dead and others wounded, London's Metropolitan Police chief warned that officials could also extradite and jail U.S. citizens for online posts about the unrest.
In its report, the State Department noted that the local and national government officials in the wake of the Southport attack "repeatedly intervened to chill speech as to the identity and motives of the attacker," who was later identified as Axel Rudakubana, a British citizen of Rwandan origins. The British government "called on companies, including U.S. firms, to censor speech deemed misinformation or ‘hate speech,’" according to the State Department, which also noted that Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson threatened to prosecute and seek the extradition of those who "repost, repeat, or amplify a message which is false, threatening, or stirs up racial/religious hatred."
The report noted that numerous individuals were arrested for online speech about the attack and its motivations, though in some cases charges were later dropped.
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"Numerous nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and media outlets criticized the government’s approach to censoring speech, both in principle and in the perceived weaponization of law enforcement against political views disfavored by authorities."
Danielle Wallace is a breaking news and politics reporter at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to danielle.wallace@fox.com and on X: @danimwallace.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jd-vance-directly-convinced-uk-drop-apple-backdoor-data-demand-protecting-americans-rights-us-official