“France wants telecom and tech firms to inform on potential terrorists,” Sam Schechner reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“A new surveillance bill to be unveiled on Thursday would give the French government power to force communications companies to sift through mountains of phone and Internet metadata using automated tools to flag potential terrorist behavior to police, government officials say, raising concern among technology firms and civil liberties groups,” Schechner reports. “It would authorize French intelligence services to use an array of high-tech tools in their search for terrorists and criminals without judicial oversight, including location trackers for cars and devices that can determine the identity of nearby mobile phones, the officials said.
Schechner reports, “If approved, the law could also force communications firms—potentially including U.S. technology companies—to give intelligence services real-time access to connection data of people suspected of involvement with terrorist groups.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, lookie here, it’s France’s version of “The Patriot Act,” a wild overreaction to terrorism that hands a major freedom-sapping victory to the terrorists. Magnifiques, abrutis!
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin, 1759
As far as Apple goes, it’s out of their hands:
Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data. So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8. – Apple Inc.
I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will. – Apple CEO Tim Cook, September 18, 2014
Related articles:
Apple CEO Tim Cook advocates privacy, says terrorists should be ‘eliminated’ – February 27, 2015
Apple’s Tim Cook warns of ‘dire consequences’ of sacrificing privacy for security – February 13, 2015
Apple CEO Tim Cook ups privacy to new level, takes direct swipe at Google – September 18, 2014
A message from Tim Cook about Apple’s commitment to your privacy – September 18, 2014
Apple will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for police, even with search warrants – September 18, 2014