US examining whether UK's encryption demand on Apple broke data treaty

Do you defend the aims of the Act, the Act itself, or both?

I'm having to figure out compliance for a volunteer run, donation funded forum, and I think the Act itself could (and should) have been better written. I don't think Ofcom can handle it better than they are, because until it's tested in court they haven't the ability to say what the vague and undefined terms mean.

I won't consider myself an expert on this, but from what I've read, that's just not true. Perhaps that's the intent, but the vague wording makes it possible that all sorts of websites could be subject to it, even, for example, a small forum run by a hobbyist that has a few hundred members.

Even if the intent behind the Act is good (debatable!), the implementation of it seems designed to scare everyone and allow for selective enforcement, while people get pushed to the big social media platforms as smaller niche communities feel pressured to shut down.

This is not really true though, is it? Involving OFCOM holds the internet to broadcaster standards, which is very different from print standards. We ditched print censorship and "think of the children" in the Lady Chatterly case, long ago.

> I think the Investigatory Powers Act (which allows for this spat with Apple) is a terrible piece of legislation.

It is. Long ago I was briefly involved with the UK Campaign for Digital Rights campaigning against it. Nowadays that work is being done by the Open Rights Group (UK HN readers check it out!)

The deeper problem is the UK security services got stuck in counterinsurgency mode during the Troubles, and then the War on Terror, and that infects everything with paranoia. There's no way to tell these people "you are fighting yesterday's threats".

For any U.S Person you may not say anything about it at all. I mean that is totally reasonable, if they want that data it's basically a diplomatic matter not a demand you issue.

What they've reportedly demanded is that systems be changed, so that later a demand for data may be be effective. As to if any hypothetical later demand for later would contravene the agreement would seem to simply be speculation for the moment.

Surely the UK could just be careful not make a contravening demand at that time? Which would then make this whole "review" a case of PR on the part of the US politician.

Now it is quite bad that the UK has apparently triggered this bit of the snoopers charter, but it would seem to be othogonal to that agreement.*

* Unless someone bothers to review the agreement, and finds that such meta-demand are covered.

Apple chose to partially comply with the order, by disabling ADP for UK users, instead of inserting a backdoor.

Apple is making the distinction here between UK and non-UK, so they can define a "UK user" however they want. A foreign citizen travelling in the UK almost certainly won't be affected.

In other words, they aren't handling this case legally, or at least that is a matter that may be resolved in court if the UK is unsatisfied with Apple's method of compliance. Apple would seek to challenge the UK's jurisdiction in that case.

That the country is STILL able to spy is the result of huge amounts of spending and insecure applications. It's pretty well known that most US law enforcement cannot get into a locked iPhone, for example.

Countries are free to set whatever conditions they like for allowing a company access to its market.