Apple, WhatsApp and Signal Will Refuse UK Government Backdoor into Encrypted Messaging

The UK government wants a backdoor into end-to-end encryption communication applications, but Apple says they would rather remove iMessenger and Facetime from iPhones in the UK.

Apple says it will remove services such as FaceTime and iMessage from the UK rather than weaken security if new proposals are made law and acted upon. The UK government is seeking to update the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) 2016.

It wants messaging services to clear security features with the Home Office before releasing them to customers.

WhatsApp and Signal are other platforms opposed the clause in the Online Safety Bill allowing the communications regulator to require companies to install technology to scan for child-abuse material in encrypted messaging apps and other services.

They will not comply with it, they say, with Signal threatening to “walk” from the UK.

7 thoughts on “Apple, WhatsApp and Signal Will Refuse UK Government Backdoor into Encrypted Messaging”

  1. It’s like these government busybodies only consider things that help them, right then, with the job at hand.

    They forget they are older, won’t live forever, and then they are going to leave their own families stuck in some dystopia they helped create.

  2. Sigh…Brexit the gift that keeps on giving.

    The UK fails to realise that they are just a middling power now and no longer have sufficient heft to compel global corporates to their will. Unlike the EU!

    • They left the EU to be able to set their own laws, free from the nitpicking bureaucracy from Bruxelles, so its sad they use the freedom to do more nitpicking.

  3. Good.

    Regardless as to whether any government should be trusted with that sort of terrifying power, any backdoor for government is an instant backdoor for every hacker on the planet—from psychotic teens to totalitarian states.

    The fact that the UK government doesn’t understand this—or doesn’t care because they are just focused on getting the power they want—is truly pathetic.

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