“Smartphone users in California take notice: a new CA State Assembly bill would ban default encryption features on all smartphones,” Andrew Crocker writes for Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Assembly Bill 1681, introduced in January by Assemblymember Jim Cooper, would require any smartphone sold in California “to be capable of being decrypted and unlocked by its manufacturer or its operating system provider.” This is perhaps even more drastic than the legal precedent at stake in Apple’s ongoing showdown with the Justice Department, in which the government is trying to force a private company to write code undermining key security features in specific cases.”
A.B. 1681 would penalize “manufacturers and providers of operating systems $2,500 per device that cannot be decrypted at the time of sale,” Crocker writes. “Similar proposals have been made by Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who published a white paper [pdf] in November 2015 arguing that law enforcement needs to access the contents of smartphones to solve a range of crimes. A nearly identical bill is also pending in the New York State Assembly.”
“A.B. 1681 is hopelessly flawed,” Crocker writes. “Take action and tell lawmakers not to support this misguided bill.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Abject stupidity from California Assemblyman Jim Cooper.
SEE ALSO:
U.S. Congressman introduces bill to forbid federal agencies from purchasing Apple products until company unlocks terrorist’s iPhone – March 3, 2016
Proposed New York State bill looks to outlaw sale of encrypted smartphones – January 14, 2016