Two senior U.S. lawmakers have criticized a British government order requiring Apple to create a backdoor into its encrypted systems, warning it could pose serious global cybersecurity risks.

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast sent a letter on Wednesday to UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, expressing concern that the UK's Technical Capability Notice (TCN) could be exploited by hackers and authoritarian regimes. They argued that weakening encryption creates systemic vulnerabilities.

Apple has refused to comply with the UK’s order and is currently challenging it at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. In February, the company withdrew its Advanced Data Protection feature for UK users, which allows users to secure their iCloud data with end-to-end encryption that even Apple cannot access.

“Creating a backdoor into end-to-end encrypted systems... introduces systemic vulnerabilities,” the lawmakers wrote. “These vulnerabilities would not only affect UK users but also American citizens and others worldwide.”

Jordan and Mast also urged the UK government to let Apple disclose the existence of the order to the U.S. Department of Justice. They argue this is necessary to evaluate compliance with the U.S.-UK CLOUD Act agreement, which bars orders requiring companies to decrypt user data.

Current UK laws prohibit companies from revealing the existence of such orders—even to their own governments.

The lawmakers concluded by urging the Home Office to reconsider any TCNs that undermine encryption, stating such actions conflict with international human rights standards, including a European Court of Human Rights ruling that recognizes strong encryption as a component of privacy rights.

The UK Home Office has said that accessing individual data would still require a legal warrant. Photo by Joe Ravi, Wikimedia commons.