Apple has amplified its concerns over a bill being considered in Britain that would expand the crown’s eavesdropping authority, warning in a submission sent to Parliament that the proposal would “weaken security for hundreds of millions of law-abiding customers.”
Backers of the proposal, the Investigatory Powers Bill, have touted the effort as a legislative solution to law enforcement’s growing inability to decipher encrypted communications since passage would provide authorities with expanded powers with respect to being able to hack and crack into the accounts of suspected criminals and access sensitive user data currently not kept by Internet companies.
In a formal filing made with the House of Commons committee considering the bill, tech titan Apple urged lawmakers to consider the consequences of approving legislation that would make it more difficult for average Internet users to protect their data from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals and in turn create new security concerns.
“In this rapidly evolving cyber-threat environment, companies should remain free to implement strong encryption to protect customers,” Apple said.
“The bill threatens to hurt law-abiding citizens in its effort to combat the few bad actors who have a variety of ways to carry out their attacks,” the company continued, adding that creating so-called “backdoors” for authorities to access communications would undoubtedly be abused.
“The creation of backdoors and intercept capabilities would weaken the protections built into Apple products and endanger all our customers. A key left under the doormat would not just be there for the good guys. The bad guys would find it too,” Apple said.
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Additionally, the Cupertino, California company said that providing British investigators with new eavesdropping powers could give way to other countries following suit, with potentially “paralyzing” repercussions.
“The bill would attempt to force non-UK companies to take actions that violate the laws of their home countries. This would immobilize substantial portions of the tech sector and spark serious international conflicts. It would also likely be the catalyst for other countries to enact similar laws, paralyzing multinational corporations under the weight of what could be dozens or hundreds of contradictory country-specific laws,” Apple warned.
The Silicon Valley giant’s official stance against the Investigatory Powers Bill was made public on Monday this week, one day after Apple CEO Tim Cook condemned similar efforts in the United States to curb the use of encryption during an appearance on CBS News’ 60 Minutes.
“I don’t believe that the trade-off here is privacy versus national security,”Mr. Cook told CBS News’ Charlie Rose. “I think that’s an overly simplistic view. We’re America. We should have both.”
British Home Secretary Theresa May, the government minister overseeing the Investigatory Powers Act, told BBC last month that legislation is necessary in order to provide investigatory with adequate tools to curb major crimes.
“It’s about bringing the ability of our law enforcement and security services to deal with the criminals and terrorists … [bringing that] forward into the digital age,” she said.
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The bill, if approved, would force tech companies including Apple to give law enforcement access to the communications sent between users when presented with a court order, and would require them to assist with efforts to hack those users in order to parse otherwise indecipherable messages secured with strong encryption, among other clauses. Speaking to “60 Minutes,” however, the Apple CEO said this week that encryption is imperative to ensure users’ personal details are adequately secured.
“Here’s the situation,” he said during Sunday night’s broadcast. “On your iPhone, there’s likely health information, there’s financial information. There are intimate conversations with your family, your co-workers. There’s probably business secrets and you should have the ability to protect it. And the only way we know how to do that, is to encrypt it.”
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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