Following New York’s introduction of a very similar bill, California is now considering a bill that would require smartphones to have a “back door” for access to encrypted content, ZDNet reports. Assembly Bill No.
1681, which has been presented as legislation for “Human Trafficking Evidentiary Access,” would “require a smartphone that is manufactured on or after January 1, 2017, and sold in California, to be capable of being decrypted and unlocked by its manufacturer or its operating system provider.” Any smartphone that couldn’t be decrypted on demand would subject a seller or lessor to a $2,500 fine. If the bill became law, iPhones (and many other smartphones) could not be sold in California if their current encryption features remained intact.
The bill was introduced by California assembly member Jim Cooper, who told Ars Technica, “For the industry to say it’s privacy, it really doesn’t hold any water. We’re going after human traffickers and people who are doing bad and evil things.
