Apple criticized British plans to increase surveillance on the Internet – Jornal de Negócios – Portugal

Technology giants criticize British law proposal to increase powers of the authorities to monitor the internet and intercept data. Apple was the first to express their opposition, but others will follow, like Facebook and Microsoft.

Apple criticized proposals from the British authorities aimed at increasing the digital surveillance powers, arguing that threats to national security can not call into question the data of millions of users, reports this Tuesday, December 22, Bloomberg.

The United Kingdom moved last month with a bill aimed at increasing the authorities’ surveillance powers to investigate potential crimes and terrorist attacks. The measures envisaged include the right to know that the Britons site visit if this is necessary for national security issues, writes Reuters

Critics of this proposal. – Including Apple – argue that the so-called Investigatory Powers Bill violates individual liberties and give the British authorities more extensive powers than currently provided for in other Western countries, including the US, writes the agency.

According to Bloomberg, Apple It considers that the British government has access to a considerable amount of data, being particularly concerned about the possibility of this law undermine privacy tools such as encryption, creating vulnerabilities that can be exploited not only by official authorities and by experienced hackers .

Also, alert the company, in response to British law, other countries may adopt similar legislation “paralyzing multinationals about the weight of what can be tens or hundreds of conflicting national laws.”

“The creation of gateways and interception capabilities would weaken the protection created in Apple products and would endanger customers,” he argued the company a document of eight pages sent to the British committee that is studying this bill. “A key under the mat would be available not only for the good guys. The bad guys also would find,” exemplified.

The apple company, which uses top encryption in their face services Time and iMessage, believes that the best way to protect against with ever more complex schemes of hacking and cyber attacks is put on higher ground – and not less – encryption, explains Reuters

Write. Bloomberg that Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and Microsoft will also submit documents to this review committee.