iPhone encryption issue one to watch: privacy commissioner

OTTAWA — Canadians should be keeping an eye on the FBI's request to gain access to an iPhone connected to the Dec. 2 San Bernadino, Calif., attack, according to Canada's privacy commissioner. "There may be some differences in terms of U.S. and Canadian legislation, but the debate is not a U.S. debate," Daniel Therrien told members of the House of Commons access to information, privacy and ethics committee on Tuesday morning, in response to a question about encryption concerns from Liberal member Nathaniel Erskine-Smith. "The debate is a universal debate which has, absolutely, extreme relevance in Canada." The FBI asked Apple Inc. to create a new version of its iPhone operating system, "circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation," CEO Tim Cook said in an online letter to customers posted last week. While Apple "has no sympathy for terrorists" and is co-operating with the American government where it can in the wake of the shootings that killed 14 people, Cook said this particular request "would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone's physical possession." It's important to keep in mind that "companies ought to be amenable to law, to court decisions," said Therrien, but he added the law also has to "bear in mind the realities of technology, and I think that's where the dilemma lies." Complying with the FBI's request would "make our users less safe," said Cook. "For years, cryptologists and national security experts have been warning against weakening encryption. Doing so would hurt only the well-meaning and law-abiding citizens who rely on companies like Apple to protect their data." The law can dictate the actions of companies and make them provide information to government and law enforcement, Therrien said. But there are wider complications when you start considering the consequences, he added. "If you break encryption, or somehow create an exception to the protection provided by encryption, technologically what impact does that have outside of the case in which the information might be sought?" Therrien said. "The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor," Cook's letter said. "And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control." Ann Cavoukian, former Ontario privacy commissioner and current head of Ryerson University's Privacy and Big Data Institute, said in a phone interview that the Apple-FBI case has "absolute relevance to everyone who uses Apple products and services." One of the reasons Cavoukian said she was interested in the iPhone for her own use was that the later versions have end-to-end encryption, "which is the strongest protection you could possibly have." "So it doesn't matter if you're an American, a Canadian, if you live in Europe, if you're using an iPhone, you can be assured that privacy is built in," said Cavoukian, who developed the Privacy by Design approach that calls for embedding privacy-protecting measures into the design of technology and business practices as the default setting. Building a backdoor to the device would become a "global phenomenon" and would "dramatically weaken privacy and security... because backdoors introduce weaknesses into the design of these communications technologies in a way that invites hackers, invites bad guys, the terrorists, the criminals." Tamir Israel, a lawyer with the Samuel-Gloshko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), also agreed that what happens south of the border will have far-reaching implications. In a phone interview, Israel said that one of the biggest hurdles with the law is compelling companies to develop these mechanisms. "So even though under Canadian law it may not have been possible to compel Apple to develop the tool, it may be easier to compel them to use the tool once it's already developed," he said. The Canadian government hasn't formally asked for a backdoor like this, according to a 2015 report co-authored by Israel and Christopher Parsons, a researcher at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. "But this public restraint may simply be reflective of the fact that the federal government's quiet war on encryption has been surprisingly successful: the default mobile communications of most Canadians are accessible to government, decryption keys can be compelled from companies, and hundreds of millions of people have cryptographic suites installed on their computers that are exploitable by Canada's signals intelligence agency," the report said. Israel said he still isn't aware of any Canadian laws that would allow a domestic agency that kind of access, but "where U.S. agencies develop capacities to get around encryption one way or another, our agencies try to find a way to get comparable powers. And it's not always as overt here as it is in the U.S." The concept of decrypting devices is larger than the 2014 Supreme Court case surrounding access by law enforcement for customer's personal information from service providers, Cavoukian said. "I think it's a dramatically understated issue at this point, which is why so many people are jumping on the bandwagon trying to educate the public about it — that it's not a matter of privacy versus security, privacy versus public safety," she said. "We have to view it differently. You can't view it as you can only have one or the other." — With reporting by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

iPhone encryption issue one to watch: privacy commissioner

News | February 23, 2016

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iPhone encryption issue one to watch: privacy commissioner

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