If you’ve been keeping up with Apple news, you’d know that it was recently at war with the FBI. In a historic legal battle, Apple was successful in setting a precedence where right to privacy won over probable cause and national security. A case in favour of iPhone encryption has been established — it is necessary.We’d talked about how the Indian Government might have answers for the iPhone encryption problem. Seems like the Delhi Police is taking that claim a step further!
Delhi Police likely to crack iPhone encryption
Economic Times’ “highly placed sources” have confirmed that Delhi Police is on a spree to recruit global firms and individuals. A process of consultation has been established to find a way to break into iPhones (siezed from suspects and convicts).
But the Delhi Police doesn’t want to stop there. They also want the ability to unlock and decode data backed up to the iCloud (for now). The idea is to extend that capability to all cloud based services. Nowadays a lot of data can be backed-up to the cloud. In such a case even if a phone is recovered and decrypted, the Police might still not find anything there because all the sensitive data has been sent to the cloud!
According to Economic Times, the police’s primary points of interest are “contact lists, messages and calls, Geo data, deleted social network posts, Messenger text, and passwords of the applications on the device. They would like to access details of platforms like Foursquare, VK, Kik, Line, Viber and Textie, as well as information from applications like Remember the Milk and Dropbox, Hide It Pro and the logs of fitness and travel apps with booking history.”
Role of the Government
I am a believer of the free market, where the government’s role is merely that of a mediator. “That goverment is the best that governs the least.” The same principle should extend to their role in terms of our personal data as well. Just to clarify, I am not saying that right to privacy should be more powerful than national security. However, I also believe that the State must not, under any circumstance, or for any reason, possess a universal key capable of unlocking all our phones.
Apple’s legal battle with FBI is over, but it has left in its wake a gaping hole that needs to be filled by policy. The international law on the tradeoff between cyber security and the right to privacy is vague at best, and non-existent at worst!
So until such time as there is a authoratative system in function that places rigourus checks and balances on the State’s power to monitor every last detail on your phone, we’d do well to avoid such an ability. Because, let’s be honest, there’s a lot more to lose than gain from such an eventuality.