Apple has joined the growing number of organizations opposed to the UK’s pending Online Safety Bill, saying the proposed law threatens the end-to-end encryption that protects private messages.

“End-to-end encryption is a critical capability that protects the privacy of journalists, human rights activists, and diplomats,” Apple said in a statement reported by the BBC yesterday. “It also helps everyday citizens defend themselves from surveillance, identity theft, fraud, and data breaches. The Online Safety Bill poses a serious threat to this protection, and could put UK citizens at greater risk. Apple urges the government to amend the bill to protect strong end-to-end encryption for the benefit of all.”

  • AnonymousLlama@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Governments trying to weaken end to end encryption so they can do more surveillance under the guise of anti-terrorism, pretty typical tbh

  • Ronno@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    When will governments and the EU learn that weakening or eliminating e2e would be a higher security threat than being able to monitor communication. Don’t these suits know that it could also affect them negatively and open the door (pun intended) for criminals to target them?

  • Jaysyn@kbin.socialOP
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    1 year ago

    The UK doing away with strong encryption would likely finish the job that the moron Brexiteers started.

    • ISOmorph@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      My dude, the UK is just a small step ahead of the EU. The EU is in the process of passing similar laws, criminalizing e2e encryption. The member states recently decided that journalists and media do not have a right to encryption and can be tracked with backdoors by police without warrants.

      The morons aren’t morons, they’re very deliberate fascists. And they’re evey-fucking-where…

  • Onii-Chan@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Ah yes, online ‘safety’ legislation. Y’know, because terrorists and pedophiles are a big enough threat to warrant the end of online privacy for everybody. Surely this has no ulterior motive, such as the ability to monitor and spy on every little thing the people do online. A government would NEVER abuse its power like that. Never.

  • landwomble@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    the one thing that might cut through the Tory bullshit is tangible stuff for UK citizens like Whatsapp, Signal pulling their products from the UK market. If Apple decided to threaten to stop selling iOS devices that would probably be enough in itself to kill off this proposal.

  • Machinist3359@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    A little late to the party, considering Apple kicked off much of this anti-e2ee flight with their message scanning announcement.