Rather than break the security promises it made to its users everywhere, Apple is likely to stop offering encrypted storage in the U.K., the people said. Yet that concession would not fulfill the U.K. demand for backdoor access to the service in other countries, including the United States.
Considering that the UK and Aus are both countries that share all their data with the US, I'm surprised at the naivety of the comments here about this.
This is a well worn path for the CIA gather dirt without needing to break any rules on monitoring US citizens.
It depends on whether other countries make or enforce conflicting laws. The UK order says they can't tell people after implementing the backdoor that Advanced Data Protection no longer provides the claimed level of security, which is a form of dishonesty that probably violates consumer protection laws in many countries.
And Apple argued to the UK Parliament when the relevant law was being enacted that it violates the right to privacy confirmed by the European Court of Human Rights, which other countries will still be bound by even if the UK follows through on its occasional threat to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.
The UK doesn't have the geopolitical clout it once did, especially not after Brexit.
> The UK doesn't have the geopolitical clout it once did, especially not after Brexit.
Aye.
But (1) I don't think the UK government really understands that, and (2) for intelligence operations, they might still have enough.
Everyone else has the exact same dichotomy of simultaneously wanting all the computers safe from other hackers while also hacking everything themselves, and many also want the added extra of guaranteed citizen's right to privacy, so legal fights like this are advantageous to most nations: all the other countries watching this get to have their cake (they can spy on encrypted comms) while eating it too (in this metaphor, when Apple is found out, they get to punish Apple and pretend to be above such things).
Sure. But if one country (or one group of countries) legally requires Apple to do this worldwide and another country (or group of countries) legally forbids Apple to do this even within their own national borders, then Apple has to decide which country (or group of countries) it cares more about. It's not obvious to me how that would shake out, but the UK certainly can't assume it would like Apple's decision there, especially since seeming to care about privacy is an important part of Apple's marketing brand.
