Security Vs Privacy

Should the police be able to unlock your devices?

—–Although we recognise that there are many things we can discuss regarding this subject, we are not covering all of them.  

   For quite some time law enforcement have criticised Apple and Samsung (to name a few) for creating devices that cannot be unlocked if they suspect incriminating evidence is stored inside a device.

After recent events the pressure has been stepped up. Not only are devices out of reach of law enforcement but so is encrypted messages which comes as standard on apps such as Whatsapp.

The government wants backdoors built into the encryption to have access should be needed. Apple and Samsung are fiercely opposed to the idea. Tim Cook (head of Apple) recently said, “Would you leave a key under the matt for cops, when a burglar might find it” to sum up his opinion on the matter
No matter how secure backdoors may be, there will always be hackers who find an exploit them, leaving people open to fraud and theft.

• When Edward Snowden came forward to tell the world that government agencies had access to secure encrypted messaging services by having access to backdoors, and even companies themselves using compromised encryption techniques, companies like Apple wanted to re-assure customers that their data would be kept private. The consequence was allowing criminals and terrorists to send secure messages that the government and security services couldn’t access.

Currently it is a crime to not provide the police the pin number or password to a device but still, if not provided they could be getting away with a much bigger crime.

If you say, if you have nothing to hide, why fear? Well the answer is simple. The police don’t always follow the rules and sometimes target sections of society who are fighting a cause we have sympathy with, such as animal rights activists, or anti-fracking campaigners, and why should we give them the access to all of our most personal information simply because they suspect us of a crime.

What do you think is the right move? To keep things the way they are and guarantee we all have access to encryption to keep our information private, or do we allow the government to be able to rip up the encryption rule book and give them the keys?