Apple has been a vocal supporter of tough security standards in the years following the Snowden revelations, and has sought to remove itself from the struggle for data between users and government by deploying encryption that even it can’t crack.
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The Brtish bill, known as the Investigatory Powers Bill, would make explicit in law for the first time that law enforcement can hack and bug computers and phones, and it obliges companies to help officials bypass encryption.
Privacy advocates and the tech industry say that introducing any kind of guaranteed access creates systemic security issues that hackers will be able to turn to their own advantage. “He learnt from his watch that his heart rate was elevated; he mentioned it to his trainer who became very anxious about it. He sent him to the doctor and the doctor told him he would have died the following day had he not come in”, said Cook. “You can’t weaken cryptography”.
Civil liberty campaigners fear the Bill could be used to demand that firms terminate the strongest form of “end to end” encryption, used by Apple, Facebook and others, which ensures that nobody apart from the sender and recipient can access the information. “Opening a back door can have very dire consequences”. We don’t think people want us to read their messages.
Cook said if Apple’s encryption were undermined, then the “bad guys” the British government is seeking to intercept will simply use alternative encryption tools. We believe that people have a fundamental right to privacy.
“We have never said this and we do not want this”, said Robert Hannigan, whose agency would be at the forefront of using new powers.
Part III of RIPA 2000 is aimed at fighting terrorism and organised crime by giving police new powers to decrypt files for use as evidence and force the release of encryption keys.
While supporters of the United Kingdom government’s measures say the bill will assist in the fight against terrorism, critics say it will wipe away the civil rights of ordinary Britons.
However the White House has said it will not take a firm stance against encryption.
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Speaking to The Telegraph to mark the arrival of the iPad Pro, Cook said that given the amount of data breaches now taking place it is clear that data needs to be protected. “You need to strengthen it. You need to stay ahead of the folks that want to break it”.
