UK demands Apple break encryption to allow gov’t spying worldwide, reports say
The United Kingdom issued a secret order requiring Apple to create a backdoor for government security officials to access encrypted data, The Washington Post reported today, citing people familiar with the matter.
UK security officials “demanded that Apple create a backdoor allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud,” the report said. “The British government’s undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies.”
Apple and many privacy advocates have repeatedly criticized government demands for backdoors to encrypted systems, saying they would harm security and privacy for all users. Backdoors developed for government use would inevitably be exploited by criminal hackers and other governments, security experts have said.
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
Signalgate | State surveillance