Apple Warns UK’s Proposed Surveillance Law Could Spark Serious International Conflicts

Apple has opposed the UK’s proposed new surveillance law saying that the measures risk sensitive information of the law-abiding citizens, Financial Times reported.

“The creation of back doors and intercept capabilities would weaken the protections built into Apple products and endanger all our customers,” Bloomberg quoted Apple’s submission to the U.K. parliamentary committee considering the bill. “A key left under the doormat would not just be there for the good guys. The bad guys would find it too.”

UK home secretary Theresa May proposed the measures in the draft investigatory powers bill last month, saying they were crucial to the fight against terrorism. According to Business Day Live, the bill seeks to considerably expand government’s powers and change surveillance laws to require companies such as Apple to retain "permanent interception capabilities" for communications, including "the ability to remove any encryption".

“There are hundreds of products that use encryption to protect user data, many of them open-source and beyond the regulation of any one government,” Apple said. “By mandating weakened encryption in Apple products, this bill will put law-abiding citizens at risk, not the criminals, hackers and terrorists who will continue having access to encryption.”

The Cupertino company pointed out that the country’s demand for the ability to access to data held in other countries would “immobilise substantial portions of the tech sector and spark serious international conflicts”.

“It would also likely be the catalyst for other countries to enact similar laws, paralysing multinational corporations under the weight of what could be dozens or hundreds of contradictory country-specific laws”, Apple said.

Social-networking and tech giants including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and Microsoft also will be submitting similar evidence to the parliamentary committee, sources told FT.

“We are clear about the need for legislation that will provide law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies with the powers they need in the digital age, subject to strict safeguards and world-leading oversight arrangements,” U.K. Security Minister John Hayes said in an e-mailed statement Tuesday, Bloomberg reported.