Apple Will Pull iMessage & FaceTime If UK Surveillance Bill Passes
The UK should get ready for an explosion of green bubbles as Apple threatens to pull iMessage and FaceTime if a controversial surveillance bill passes.
The UK’s Home Office has been waging a war on end-to-end encryption (E2EE) and is looking to update the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) 2016. One of the revisions would force companies to notify the Home Office before including or changing any security features in their services. Other revisions would force companies to add the ability to scan content — including encrypted messages — for illegal content, effectively destroying E2EE.
WhatsApp and Signal have both signaled their plans to withdraw from the UK market if the bill passes as-is, but now Apple is threatening similar action, according to The Guardian.
“Together, these provisions could be used to force a company like Apple, that would never build a backdoor, to publicly withdraw critical security features from the UK market, depriving UK users of these protections,” Apple said in a submission to the government.
Apple also said the new provisions would “make the Home Office the de facto global arbiter of what level of data security and encryption are permissible.”
Outside of Apple, WhatsApp, and Signal, countless experts are sounding the alarm on the UK’s plans.
“Once the government has been granted powers to intercept private messaging services, that’s it, there’s no going back,” said Dr. Nathalie Moreno, a partner at the UK law firm Addleshaw Goddard, which specializes in cybersecurity and data protection.
If Apple, WhatsApp, and Signal all follow through on their threats, UK citizens should be prepared for nothing but green bubble SMS.
