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Security and Encryption: The Government Versus Technology?
The battle between the government/FBI/Department of Justice (DoJ) and tech firms like Apple over being able to secure access to encrypted data stored on personal devices continues to simmer. The government is requesting “back door” access stored data from tech products, even to data which has been stored as encrypted.
Tim Cook, CEO at Apple, argued that “the same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe.”
Craig Federighi, Apple’s vice president of software, weighed in with the opinion that “security is an endless race that you can lead but never decisively win… We cannot afford to fall behind those who would exploit technology in order to cause chaos. To slow our pace, or reverse our progress, puts everyone at risk.”
But the battle isn’t as clear-cut as it seems. Even within the Obama administration, members are split as to which side they are taking.
Internationally, people are taking the side of the government. A poll taken by Business Insider found that in the US, 60 percent of people felt that what the government is requesting is reasonable and that law enforcement should be able to have access to data stored on personal computer devices. In China 74 percent side with the government. The numbers are high elsewhere too, in Great Britain, it is 69 percent, in France it is 63 percent, and in Germany it is 56 percent.
Luke Dembosky, member of the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, told Fortune magazine that “it’s a very big government, and everyone is trying to do the right thing. There are countries where they don’t have these debates.”
