As expected, Apple will withhold its most advanced data protection from customers of the iPhone in the United Kingdom rather than obey a UK order to provide a worldwide back door to such encryption.
This is probably Apple’s least worst choice given the alternatives confronting it. But that means British users of the iPhone won’t have this encryption at all.
Had Apple obeyed, the back door would have been installed on encryption-equipped iPhones worldwide, not just in the iPhones of persons residing in the sceptered isle.
The mandated back door would, of course, have been exploitable by cyberhackers contracted by enemy governments as well as by members of “good” governments claiming really good reasons for needing to rummage through your iPhone at will.
Members of the United Kingdom’s current horrific government are being coy, not even deigning to say whether they have ordered Apple to thus jeopardize Apple customers.
The order is, after all, supposed to be a secret.
But the Starmer government isn’t denying the order’s existence either. If major media reports were accusing me of issuing such an order, one that I had nothing to do with and regarded as wrong in principle, I would deny the deed hotly. But that’s me.
What should happen now?
Many things. For a starters, an end of the Starmer government. Release of the documentation of its order. Universal repudiation of the kind of reasoning that says the best way to ensure everybody’s security is to make everybody’s security impossible.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with Krea and Fireflly
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2 replies on “Back Door Demand”
Fortunately, there are plenty of after-market apps for encrypting various aspects of iPhones (and Android phones as well). They require a little homework and setup on the part of the Brits, and other people, who use them, but if people are willing to do that extra bit, governments will continue to lose their war on phone privacy.
Until governments can be convinced to stop trying to peer into every intimate aspect of our lives (and who knows when THAT will happen?), we the people must take matters into our own hands to preserve our privacy. One way to do this is through steganography, which conceals that private information is embedded in an innocent-looking image (or other large file). As it happens, I’ve written a free, open-source steg program, available at the link pointed to by my handle.