[Tagbert]

The British Government believes it to be secure. That’s why they were asking for a back door.

[amelius]

Brits: can we have access to the backdoor?

Apple: sure, but only if you pretend you didn't get access

Brits: jolly good

[eesmith]

Another way to interpret it is they think it's secure against the British Government, and were asking for the same back door the US has.

[graemep]

While they did did get a backdoor they did get Apple to withdraw the product from the UK so it no longer impedes mass suveillance.

[lambdasquirrel]

That only means that the UK government doesn’t have access to the backdoor.

[dixie_land]

Exactly they built one for the Chinese government. It's not if they have a back door it's who gets to use it

[breppp]

according to the snowden documents it is quite obvious that if the US government had a backdoor then the UK government would have one through five eyes

[GorbachevyChase]

It’s possible that the back door already exists, and they already have it. So if they had conducted unlawful surveillance using these methods, then they may have to come up with some plausible explanation as to how they got that information legally. You could imagine a scenario where there is no plausible explanation for how the information could have been legally obtained. If they codify the use of the back door into law, then there is no need for all this theater.

One of my favorite conspiracy theories is that this is what the CIA Stargate program was. You don’t leak the existence of informants or satellites because you just got the information from “a psychic“.

[OutOfHere]

It's just that the British Government doesn't have access to the backdoor whereas the American Government does have it. It's in no way secure.