Australian Government Ignores Experts in Advancing Its Anti-encryption Bill Reviews
Apple rebukes Australia's 'dangerously cryptic' anti-encryption pecker
Apple has strongly criticized Australia's anti-encryption bill, calling information technology "dangerously cryptic" and "alarming to every Australian."
The Australian government's draft police force — known equally the Access and Assistance Bill — would hogtie tech companies operating in the land, like Apple, to provide "assistance" to law enforcement and intelligence agencies in accessing electronic data. The regime claims that encrypted communications are "increasingly being used by terrorist groups and organized criminals to avoid detection and disruption," without citing evidence.
Simply critics say that the bill's "broad regime that would undermine cybersecurity and human rights, including the right to privacy" by forcing companies to build backdoors and hand over user data — even when it's encrypted.
Now, Apple is the latest company after Google and Facebook joined civil and digital rights groups — including Amnesty International — to oppose the bill, amidst fears that the regime will rush through the bill before the stop of the twelvemonth.
In a seven-page letter to the Australian parliament, Apple said that information technology "would be wrong to weaken security for millions of law-abiding customers in order to investigate the very few who pose a threat."
"We appreciate the government's outreach to Apple and other companies during the drafting of this bill," the letter read. "While we are pleased that some of the suggestions incorporated improve the legislation, the unfortunate fact is that the typhoon legislation remains dangerously ambiguous with respect to encryption and security."
"This is no time to weaken encryption," it read. "Rather than serving the interests of Australian law enforcement, it will merely weaken the security and privacy of regular customers while pushing criminals further off the grid."
Apple laid out six focus points — which yous can read in full hither — each arguing that the bill would violate international agreements, weaken cybersecurity and harm user trust by compelling tech companies to build weaknesses or backdoors in its products. Security experts have for years said that at that place's no way to build a "secure backdoor" that gives law enforcement authorities access to data only tin can't be exploited by hackers.
Although Australian lawmakers have claimed that the beak's intentions are non to weaken encryption or hogtie backdoors, Apple's alphabetic character said the "the breadth and vagueness of the beak'due south authorities, coupled with ill-defined restrictions" leaves the neb's meaning open to interpretation.
"For example, the bill could allow the authorities to social club the makers of smart home speakers to install persistent eavesdropping capabilities into a person'due south abode, crave a provider to monitor the wellness data of its customers for indications of drug use, or crave the development of a tool that can unlock a particular user'south device regardless of whether such tool could be used to unlock every other user'southward device equally well," the letter said.
Apple'south comments are some of the strongest pro-encryption statements it's given to date.
Two years ago, the FBI sued Apple to force the applied science behemothic to build a tool to bypass the encryption in an iPhone used by one fo the the San Bernardino shooters, who killed 14 people in a terrorist attack in December 2015. Apple challenged the FBI'southward demand — and chief executive Tim Melt penned an open letter called the movement a "dangerous precedent." The FBI later dropped its case after information technology paid hackers to access the device's contents.
Australia's anti-encryption bill is the latest in a string of legislative efforts by governments to seek greater surveillance powers.
The U.1000. passed its Investigatory Powers Act in 2016, and earlier this year the U.S. reauthorized its foreign surveillance laws with few changes, despite efforts to shut warrantless domestic spying loopholes discovered in the wake of the Edward Snowden disclosures.
The Five Eyes group of governments — made up of the U.1000., U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand — further doubled down on its anti-encryption aggression in recent remarks, demanding that tech companies provide access or face legislation that would hogtie their assist.
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Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/12/apple-rebukes-australias-dangerously-ambiguous-anti-encryption-bill/
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