“It’s crazy. (David) Cameron is living in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks that this is a sensible idea.”
— Graham Cluley, security expert, reacts to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s comments that he wants to ban encrypted messaging apps if the government can’t access people’s communications. The ban Cameron is suggesting would affect messaging services such as iMessage, WhatsApp, Snapchat and more.
“Are we going to allow a means of communications which it simply isn’t possible to read?” Cameron reportedly said during a speech Monday. “My answer to that question is: ‘No, we must not.’ ” Cameron cited the recent massacre in Paris as an example of governments’ need to monitor communications if necessary.
But according to the Guardian, the U.K.’s data watchdog, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham, said “we must avoid knee-jerk reactions. In particular, I am concerned about any compromising of effective encryption for consumers of online services.”
As governments push for more access to electronic communications, including by introducing “back doors” that would allow such access, Graham isn’t the only one concerned about risking security in the name of surveillance. Former U.S. government tech contractor Edward Snowden recently warned that the United States has “more to lose than any other nation on earth” if the government continues to emphasize surveillance over security. And Cory Doctorow writes for Boing Boing: “There’s no back door that only lets good guys go through it.”
Photo of British Prime Minister David Cameron by Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images