To no one’s surprise, Apple CEO Tim Cook urged government officials to embrace strong encryption to protect consumer data, urging them to come out publicly in support of it. His comments came during last week’s cyber security summit.
Cook’s plea came during a cybersecurity summit held in San Jose, Calif., last week, where government officials met with Silicon Valley tech executives to discuss how best to stymie threats posed by non-state actors like ISIS, reports The Guardian.
Cook asked the White House to stand against the “weak encryption” policies called for by law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, which would allow government access to encrypted data.. He told assembled officials the government should take a “no backdoors” stance on encryption.
During the discussion, Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the participants a balance must be struck between personal privacy and national security. Among those attending the summit were FBI director James Comey, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, National Intelligence Director James Clapper and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers.
While government officials have called for relaxed encryption methods, saying the strong encryption methods used by Apple, Google, and other technology firms allow criminals and terrorists to communicate without the fear of their messages being decrypted, Cook has maintained that any backdoor provided to law enforcement could also be used by the bad guys to access a customer’s data.
Apple’s iOS 8 operating system for mobile devices introduced a data encryption package that the company itself cannot crack, even if presented with warrants ordering them to do so.