Jimmy Wales, who set up the online encyclopaedia in 2001, said the draft Investigatory Powers Bill was “stupid” and he would like to see Apple refuse to sell iPhone in UK if government bans end-to-end encryption. It is not often that we agree completely with him, although probably for different reasons.
iPhones include a messaging programme called iMessage which would likely fall under the provisions in the bill banning “strong” end-to-end encryption of messages.
The proposed law, to be published in its full draft from on Wednesday by the Home Secretary Theresa May, will mandate internet and technology companies to hand over communications data on request.
This means that encryption on communications would in theory have to be breakable by those firms in some way.
Apple currently says it could not give iMessage data to authorities even if it wanted to, because of the strong encryption it uses on the service. It has already made this legal argument to authorities in the United States.
The law is completely daft and so easy to get around. Wales appears to think that the country will suffer if Apple does not operate there. In fact the opposite applies. Apple pays very little tax in the UK so money spend on Apple products is a loss to the UK economy.