Or at least that’s how some people seem to portray our choice when we talk about privacy and terrorism. It is a hot topic for sure, in the past year there was even a referendum in the Netherlands about the “sleepwet”. It was a question of whether or not the AIVD the Dutch intelligence service should get more and easier access to the data of all people in the Netherlands. Earlier this week this topic got in the news again when Apple told the Australian government that it’s new plan is a bad idea.
The Australian government wants companies to make it easier for government agencies to get access to data in several platforms. People are afraid that this would be about creating so called backdoors. This are pieces of code which enable users who have access to this code to easily access all data. This sounds great in theory but the fear is that it would enable people with bad intentions to get into these services easily as well.
And this could have scary consequences, think about all the data you have stored online! About all the messages you send to your friends, about the banking transactions you perform online. If people with bad intentions got access to this the consequences could be disastrous!
There seems to be a big gap between what governments think is wise and what the industry thinks is wise. But who should we trust, governments in general don’t have the best reputation when it comes to adapting to new technologies. But on the other hand can we trust companies to have our best interest in mind or are they just thinking about their own gains?
One thing is for sure, if we don’t make the right choices we might end up not even having the choice between our privacy or our life!
Source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/australian-encryption-busting-bill-would-create-backdoors-cisco/
