The Investigatory Powers Tribunal had dismissed Apple’s legal appeal against a government order requiring it to provide intelligence services and law enforcement with the capability to access encrypted data of Apple users worldwide.
The tribunal has ruled that the case would no longer proceed following a “change in circumstances,” according to court documents obtained by Computer Weekly.
The decision effectively brings Apple’s legal action against the Home Office to a halt, although a separate legal claim brought by campaign groups Privacy International and Liberty is expected to continue.
It comes days after disclosures that the Home Office has issued a new order against Apple to restrict UK government access to encrypted data and messages stored on Apple’s iCloud service only for British users.
The move by the Home Office ends a growing diplomatic row between the UK and the Trump administration over fears that the UK could use the order to access the communications of US citizens.
Claim dismissed
According to a court order obtained by Computer Weekly, Apple and the Home Office have agreed that Apple’s appeal should no longer go ahead.
“This claim is dismissed on the basis of a change in circumstances which, the tribunal has decided, means the claim should no longer proceed,” the order on 6 October stated.
We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP are not available to our customers in the UK, given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy Apple spokesperson
Apple did not comment on the withdrawal of its legal case and declined to say whether it would issue a new legal challenge against the Home Office’s revised order.
However, a company spokesperson confirmed that Apple would still not be able to offer its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) service, which it withdrew from the UK rather than comply with the Home Office’s order – to its UK customers.
“We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP are not available to our customers in the UK, given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy,” the spokesperson added.
Backdoor order
The row between Apple and the Home Office came after the government issued a secret technical capability notice (TCN) to Apple in January, requiring it to provide warranted backdoor access to messages and data stored by Apple users worldwide.
The notice extended the ability of UK law enforcement to access encrypted data stored by users on Apple’s iCloud to include users of its secure ADP service, which is fully end-to-end encrypted.
The government argued that it needed to be able to obtain warrants to access individuals’ private encrypted data on Apple’s iCloud service, including data protected by ADP, in the interests of national security and tackling crime.
Apple has opposed the order on the grounds that it needs to offer its users the “highest levels of security” for their personal data to protect their privacy and secure them against data breaches and hacking.
The Home Office’s actions sparked a diplomatic row with the US, after the existence of the secret TCN order was leaked to the Washington Post.
US director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard publicly raised concerns that the UK’s order against Apple could “undermine Americans’ privacy and civil liberties”. President Donald Trump described the move as “something that you hear about with China”.
Legal action by NGOs expected to continue
A separate case brought against the Home Office by Privacy International, Liberty and two individuals, which challenges the lawfulness of the technical capability notice, is expected to continue.
The IPT has refused an application by the campaign groups to disclose the terms of any revised TCN issued by the government in the light of agreements reached with the US, according to documents obtained by Computer Weekly.
The IPT ruled that although public notices issued by President Trump, the vice-president and the US director of national security implied that the Home Office had served a new TCN on Apple, neither Apple nor the Home Office had publicly confirmed or denied that this was the case.
The IPT is due to hear the case on the basis of “assumed facts” – which allow the case to be heard in open court – in January 2026.
According to the court documents, the TCN allows the interception of communications and multiple categories of data stored in Apple’s iCloud backup service.
It requires Apple to remove electronic protection applied to the data where it is “reasonably practicable” and to provide access to data stored on Apple’s Advanced Data Protection and iCloud services under a warrant.
Bernard Keenan, a lecturer in law at UCL and a specialist in the Investigatory Powers Act, said that the withdrawal of Apple’s appeal by mutual consent, indicated that Apple and the UK government have come to an arrangement acceptable for both sides.
“If reports that the TCN has been limited to UK users are accurate, then the government will have maintained the capability to intercept communications sent or stored via encrypted Apple services in the UK, while Apple will have decided that they are unlikely to win an appeal against an order in those terms in court,” he added.
Apple did not comment on the decision to discontinue its case.
An Apple spokesperson said it was “gravely disappointed” not to be able to offer Apple customers its secure ADP service in the UK.
“Enhancing the security of cloud storage with end-to-end encryption is more urgent than ever before. Apple remains committed to offering our users the highest level of security for their personal data and are hopeful that we will be able to do so in the future in the United Kingdom,” the spokesperson said.
“As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services, and we never will,” the spokesperson added.
ADP protects iCloud data with end-to-end encryption, which means the data can only be decrypted by the user who owns the data on their own trusted devices. Apple, which does not have access to ADP encryption keys, is unable to read messages stored on the service.
A Home Office spokesperson said, “we do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices.”
The UAE has announced that it will leave OPEC and OPEC+ effective May 1, ending a membership that began in 1967—four years before the UAE itself was founded as a country. This signals a turning point in the UAE’s role in global energy.
The government statement, published on state news agency WAM, cited a comprehensive review of the country’s production policy and capacity as the basis for the move, calling it a reflection of “the UAE’s long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile.”
The decision, it said, is rooted in national interest and a commitment to meeting what it described as the market’s “pressing needs,” a reference to global demand that the UAE believes is being underserved at a time of significant supply disruption.
The statement acknowledged the geopolitical backdrop—including an ongoing conflict with Iran that has severely restricted tanker movements through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which roughly a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes.
The EIA estimates that Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain shut in 7.5 million barrels per day of crude oil production in March, and 9.1 million barrels per day in April.
However, the statement framed the exit as policy-driven rather than reactive, noting that “underlying trends point to sustained growth in global energy demand over the medium to long term.”
A Long-Running Dispute
Tuesday’s announcement was not without precedent. In 2021, the UAE refused to endorse a production agreement to extend cuts to production unless its individual quota was raised, arguing that it had invested billions to expand capacity and was being unfairly constrained by figures set in 2018. A compromise was eventually reached, but the episode exposed a fundamental tension: The UAE wants to produce more, and OPEC’s quota system was holding it back.
That ambition has only grown since. State oil company ADNOC has a stated target of 5 million barrels per day by 2027, up from current production of around 3.4 million. Under the OPEC+ deal, the country has been held to roughly 3.2 million barrels per day while sitting on capacity above 4 million, a gap that made continued membership increasingly difficult to justify.
The UAE stressed that its exit does not signal a retreat from global energy responsibility. It pledged to bring additional production to market “in a gradual and measured manner, aligned with demand and market conditions,” and reaffirmed investment plans across oil, gas, renewables, and low-carbon technologies.
The statement noted that leaving OPEC would make the nation more flexible to respond to market dynamics; OPEC sets limits on production, meaning that the world’s biggest producers can often supply and sell more oil than they actually do.
By limiting supply, the group is able to support prices. This mechanism primarily benefits producers that rely heavily on oil revenue, a description that fits Saudi Arabia far more than the UAE, whose non-oil economy now accounts for roughly 75 percent of GDP.
Market Reaction and Wider Implications
The immediate market response was sharp. Brent crude, the European benchmark, surpassed $100 per barrel for the first time since 8 April, rising to $111 as of writing.
The longer-term implications for OPEC are more consequential. The group has been under strain for months, with several members—including Iraq, Kazakhstan, and the UAE itself—having overproduced their quotas and being required to compensate. The UAE’s departure strips the group of its third-largest producer at a time when supply dynamics are already fragile.
The exit follows Qatar’s departure from the group in 2019, and comes as OPEC prepared for a meeting in Vienna on Wednesday.
“The time has come to focus our efforts on what our national interest dictates and our commitment to our investors, customers, partners and global energy markets,” the statement read.
The UAE said it values more than five decades of cooperation within OPEC and wished the organization success going forward.
The next gadget you put on your head could scan your brain. Neurable, a Boston-based company that embeds its noninvasive brain-scanning technology into hardware to monitor a person’s focus levels, announced on Tuesday that it is transitioning to a licensing platform model. By certifying third parties, Neurable expects its tech to be in a “flood” of consumer gadgets this year and next.
Neurable has until now focused its efforts on a pair of consumer-grade headphones—made in partnership with audio brand Master & Dynamic. It also has a contract with the US Department of Defense to see how its technology can monitor blast overpressure and potentially help diagnose mild traumatic brain injuries in soldiers. With the licensing model, we could see more of Neurable’s tech in everyday head-based wearables.
The headphones use built-in electroencephalography (EEG) sensors to monitor brain waves. That information is sent to a companion app and lets wearers know when they need a “brain break,” nudging them to take a breather before they feel burnt out to maximize productivity. The app also lets users discover their cognitive readiness for the day, their brain age, and other metrics, such as mental recovery, cognitive strain, and anxiety resilience. WIRED staff writer Emily Mullin tested the original headphones in 2024, though she found it difficult to verify the accuracy of Neurable’s algorithms.
Now, HP-owned gaming brand HyperX is releasing a gaming headset with Neurable’s technology, and it’s all about improving human performance while esports gaming. The headphones are purported to help wearers ease into the right state of mind for the best performance. Ramses Alcaide, Neurable cofounder and CEO, tells WIRED that the company has published a white paper showing improved performance among gamers using Neurable’s tech, with reduced response times in first-person shooter games and a small increase in accuracy.
The improvements may sound minor, but milliseconds are precious in the fast-paced world of esports gaming. And Alcaide says it could translate similarly to other fields: It could help a student reduce anxiety before an exam, while athletes could condition their nerves ahead of a race or game. Neurable is hardware-agnostic; Alcaide says it can be embedded in headphones, smart glasses, hats, or helmets. “There’s a whole landscape of technology that touches your head that’s yet to be embedded with our platform,” he says.
He likens it to when Fitbit made the idea of a wrist-worn heart-rate tracker popular. In the beginning, no one knew how fitness wearables would be received, but now no one blinks an eye at one on a wrist. Soon, no one will think twice about brain-scanning tech in headphones—or, at least, that’s the idea. Neurable’s tech is “invisible” in these types of gadgets.
Companies licensing Neurable’s tech can integrate it into existing hardware, Alcaide says, and will control the entire experience from product design to the software experience; these products will be advertised as “Powered by Neurable AI.” The user data still flows to Neurable’s servers for processing, but Neurable sets the data privacy protections. User identifiers are separated from the data, and while partner companies host the user-facing layer, Neurable says it keeps control of the underlying system and data handling. Neurable has previously said its business model is not to sell user data.
“Any time there’s a new transition to technology, there’s always going to be some anxiety,” Alcaide says. “We’ve been very careful when it comes to that transition. We’re protecting the data, being as ethical as possible.”
The two USB-C ports are on the left side, alongside HDMI and a USB-A port. The second USB-A port, a microSD card slot, and a headphone jack are on the right. It’s not a nice assortment of ports overall, and I just wish Acer had split the USB-C ports up so the laptop could have a charging port on either side.
Acer is using a top-notch 16-inch OLED touchscreen display on the Swift 16 AI. It has a resolution of 2880 x 1800, a refresh rate of 120 Hz, and color saturation as close to perfect as I’ve seen. Like most OLED laptops, it has a glossy, highly reflective display that maxes out at 315 nits of brightness, according to my testing. It’s nowhere near as bright as IPS or mini-LED displays, but the trade-off in brightness is to achieve that unbeatable contrast that only OLED can deliver.
A Risky Touchpad
Photograph: Luke Larsen
The full-size keyboard and oversized touchpad are definitely the most notable elements of this laptop. The first thing you notice is the touchpad, which is certainly the largest I’ve ever seen. You might think it looks a bit silly, but I always like it when companies leave as little wasted space on a product as possible. I really wanted to like this touchpad, but unfortunately, it could deter most people from buying this product.
On large laptops like the Swift 16 AI, which have a number pad to the right of the keyboard, the touchpad is typically below the keyboard, making it visually off-center. While it’s functional, this arrangement looks odd, and some 16-inch laptops get around this by omitting the number pad entirely. That’s what you see on the MacBook Pro, the Dell XPS 16, and most gaming laptops these days, too.
Rather than removing the number pad, Acer expanded the touchpad and centered it. This makes good use of the space below the keyboard, preserves the number pad, and solves the aesthetic annoyance that typically plagues full-size laptops.
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