With the release of iOS 8, Apple made a big first move in the ongoing privacy battle between tech companies and the government. In its updated privacy statement , Apple claims that with iOS 8, “…your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode. Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data. So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.” Google, for its part, quickly followed.
The government, reacting to this new feature, is concerned. In a recent interview, FBI Director James Comey explains “..What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law.”
In my opinion, Apple, Google and other technology companies will eventually open up their devices to government scrutiny. Since this is an ongoing negotiation, Apple and Google have taken this first step in order to gain leverage in ensuing negotiations. It’s critical that there is an open discussion amongst technology companies, consumer groups, and government, to determine under what circumstances, if any, the government should be able to access personal data.
Regardless, the day when we can successfully hide from the government may not yet be here. If you read through Apple’s security document, a quasi-technical explanation of its security features, you realize that device security and encryption is exceedingly complex. Consequently, it’s likely that there are known or yet-unknown security flaws. The recent exposure of Heartbleed, the Open SSL bug, has shown us that for even widely trusted software, security isn’t as strong as we like to think.
