India, Feb. 28 -- It may perhaps be a little surprising that even though most of the regulatory action on big tech has been happening in the US over the past year, it is the UK's Investigatory Powers Act of 2016 that has proved to be unsurmountable. At least, for most intents and purposes. The UK authorities wanted unencrypted access to users' data stored on iCloud servers, and ordered Apple to build a backdoor. The scale of this demand, surprising even in the face of governments worldwide regularly showing clear intent to have access to citizens' data, is unprecedented.

"Apple has never created a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services. We have also never allowed any government direct access to Apple servers," reads Ap...