Microsoft, Apple, Google and 44 other security firms and organizations have recently condemned a UK law proposal that adds law enforcement personnel monitoring encrypted calls, messages and chats.
An open letter was sent to GCHQ by Apple, Google and others on May 22 and was recently made public. The “ghost proposal”, as the letter states should be rejected on 3 points:
- It invariably creates new risks.
- It violates basic human rights.
- It undermines GCHQ’s stated principles.
The proposal, created by GCHQ, seeks to work around encryption in apps such as WhatsApp, FaceTime, Messages and Signal but breaches security and privacy in the process.
Currently, Apple has had no problems telling law enforcement agencies that there’s no way they could provide information on FaceTime calls and chats on Messages because of end-to-end encryption technology. This means that even Apple wouldn’t have the encryption key to access the private content.
