UK against encryption

The company claims that: The British government is trying to be the regulator in the field of data encryption. Politicians want to independently manage the degree of security and privacy of users in the country. But Apple is confident that this will turn out to be a disaster for the entire world.

The main concern is two points:

• End-to-end encryption ban on iMessage and FaceTime announced in July.
• Plans to ban the release of security patches without the approval of politicians were announced last week.

According to the source, it has been trying to control users’ personal data and correspondence for 17 years. In 2006, the then government first came up with the idea of ​​banning strong encryption as part of its “Stop Modernization Programme”.

In 2016, the Investigative Powers Act implemented many provisions of the Program, including allowing the government to order tech companies to crack encryption by placing backdoors on their products. Apple expressed a categorical protest against the support of such measures.

But the persecution may not end there. Apple says we’re on the verge of a law that demands worldwide jurisdiction: “The current capabilities of investigative power law are broad and already pose a significant risk to the global availability of critical security technologies.” […] By claiming to have cross-regional application, the law allows the UK Home Office to claim that it can apply privacy requirements to providers in other countries and thus to users worldwide.”.

The country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, as It seeks “expanded powers to regulate foreign companies and the ability to pre-screen and even block innovative security technologies.” This could undermine the development of the global security market and expose users in all countries to greater risk. After all, hackers’ methods are improving every day, and if you artificially slow down the development of protection, sooner or later it will turn into a disaster.

Apple concludes that the UK actually wants to have the power no other country has, to ban companies from increasing security without special permission. Apple is calling for the proposed changes to be rejected, as the law could become an international issue if enacted.

Briefly about end-to-end encryption

We will remind you that the end-to-end encryption that the British government wants to ban makes it impossible to hack user data such as correspondence or calls. For this, they are encoded with a special cryptographic key, which is stored only on the devices of the addressee and does not reach the company’s servers or other intermediaries. That is, even the developers of this or that service cannot read the contents of your data.

On the one hand, it makes it impossible to listen to user correspondence, which in itself is a positive situation, on the other hand, it does not allow law enforcement to expose criminals. However, Apple believes that governments can abuse these capabilities and use them even when not necessary to maintain law and order. Thus, it effectively absolves itself of liability: If it cannot have such a key by default, governments will no longer be able to pressure it for the decryption key.

This type of encryption is considered the most secure type of encryption in the world today.