Mikey Campbell
Apple has sent top privacy executives to Australia twice over the past month to discuss proposed cybersecurity laws that could compel technology companies to provide law enforcement agencies access to encrypted customer messages.
Citing unnamed sources, The Sydney Morning Herald reports Apple met with Australian Attorney-General George Brandis and members of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's government on Tuesday to talk over the cybersecurity measures.
At least one of the engagements was announced on Monday, when Brandis said he planned to meet with Apple executives in hopes of persuading the company to share encrypted data with the country's spy and law enforcement agencies.
According to sources familiar with the talks, Apple maintained its strong stance in favor of consumer privacy, saying it does not want to see laws updated to block companies from using encryption technology, the report said. Further, Apple is opposed to furnishing government agencies with cryptographic keys that would allow access to secure messages.
Apple in its meetings with Australian officials looked to cut down on additional regulation and legal obligations that could potentially result from the new laws, sources said.
Turnbull last week proposed a set of updated cybersecurity laws that would force tech companies like Apple, Facebook and Google to provide access end-to-end encrypted communications if obliged to do so by court order. The regulations, which the Turnbull administration is looking to get on the books by year's end, are modeled after the UK's Investigatory Powers Act.
"We've got a real problem in that the law enforcement agencies are increasingly unable to find out what terrorists and drug traffickers and pedophile rings are up to because of the very high levels of encryption," Turnbull said. "Where we can compel it, we will, but we will need the cooperation from the tech companies."
Exactly how the government intends to enforce the proposed rules remains unclear.
End-to-end encryption systems rely on cryptographic keys to encrypt plain text messages as they travel through servers between devices. Importantly, service providers do not have access to private keys and are therefore unable to access conversations.
Members of Turnbull's administration who met with Apple said the government does not want to create backdoors to messaging services, nor does it want to weaken encryption, sources said. Apple's recent meetings were in part meant help the government decide how best to overcome these substantial technical hurdles, the report said.
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17 Comments
The Turnbull government keeps saying they don't want a backdoor, yet they constantly infer being able to obtain decoded versions of encrypted communications, i.e. a backdoor. Worse still they frequently frame encrypted service providers as prioritising the protection of terrorist's privacy over the public's safety. That's utter garbage.
A court issued warrant for a law enforcemaent agency to obtain a transcript of a person's calls from the service provider does not require the government to have the key to the backdoor, but it does require the serice provider to have them and my understanding is that there is no backdoor in Apple's system (unless you have access to an unlocked handset), so I am not sure what they are trying to do.
Prim Minister Turnbull (Trumbull to Spicer) needs anything to get people to stop thinking about his incompetence. Turnbull is know locally as a 'fizzer'. That is a fire cracker with great hopes that it will give us a good outcome, like a big bang, but instead fails to explode but just fizzes after it is lit, giving us...nothing.
I know it won't happen (and arguably should not happen), but the vindictive jerk in me would like to see Apple pull out of Australia the day any such law goes into effect. Of course, it wouldn't actually hurt any of the politicians were that to happen, just the people who work in related jobs, and we've seen how much politicians actually care about people lately.
Look what this idiot has to say about encryption:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140747-laws-of-mathematics-dont-apply-here-says-australian-pm/
“The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia,” said Turnbull.
:D