CNBC reports that Apple's appeal against the UK government's order to create a "backdoor" allowing access to encrypted iPhone user data will be heard in public after the country's Investigatory Powers Tribunal dismissed the government's attempt to conduct the hearing behind closed doors due to national security risks.
Making the hearing regarding the backdoor impedes "the principle of open justice," noted judges Rabinder Singh and Jeremy Johnson in their ruling. "It would have been a truly extraordinary step to conduct a hearing entirely in secret without any public revelation of the fact that a hearing was taking place," said the ruling. Such a development comes more than a month after Apple removed Advanced Data Protection functionality in iCloud for UK users following the backdoor order. "Apple remains committed to offering our users the highest level of security for their personal data and we are hopeful that we will be able to do so in the future in the United Kingdom," said Apple at the time.
The new username functionality enables users to set a unique handle and share that instead of their personal phone number when initiating conversations.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures applies to location data collected by companies like Google.
As outlined in CyberScoop, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has canceled a contract with Penlink that utilized ad-surveillance technologies to track Americans' locations.
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