The UK Want Back Door Into Private Electronic Communications

From the BBC: Apple joins opposition to encrypted message app scanning:

The government says companies must prevent child abuse on their platforms.

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) stops anyone but the sender and recipient reading the message.

Police, the government and some high-profile child protection charities maintain the tech - used in apps such as WhatsApp and Apple's iMessage - prevents law enforcement and the firms themselves from identifying the sharing of child sexual abuse material.

But in a statement Apple said: "End-to-end encryption is a critical capability that protects the privacy of journalists, human rights activists, and diplomats.

"It also helps everyday citizens defend themselves from surveillance, identity theft, fraud, and data breaches. The Online Safety Bill poses a serious threat to this protection, and could put UK citizens at greater risk.

"Apple urges the government to amend the bill to protect strong end-to-end encryption for the benefit of all."

But the government told the BBC that "companies should only implement end-to-end encryption if they can simultaneously prevent abhorrent child sexual abuse on their platforms.

These are the same arguments that have been made ever since encryption became a thing. (See Steven Levy’s book Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government--Saving Privacy in the Digital Age [affiliate link]) The fact is you can’t have encryption and a back door–that’s just not how it works. Your data is secure or it isn’t: there isn’t a shade of gray here.

And if the government can force companies to scan for “child abuse” (polite euphemism for child pornography) today, it can force the government to scan for dissident communication tomorrow.

The argument always starts with “Will someone please think of the children?!” and ends with government oppression and the loss of civil liberties.

Furthermore, there is going to be a major cost associated with the scanning if the law goes into effect. While large companies like Apple and Google may be able to bear that cost, it will be a barrier to entry for any company that wants to enter the instant messaging space. Do we really want the government doling out monopoly power to corporations?