Apple Is Building An Online Portal For Police To Make Data Requests (cnet.com)

In a letter last Tuesday to Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Apple said it is working on an online portal for law enforcement officials to submit and track requests for data and obtain responses from the company. Apple also said it's "creating a dedicated team to help train law enforcement officials around the world in digital forensics," reports CNET. From the report: The letter, seen by CNET, addresses recommendations made in a report issued earlier this year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) regarding cybersecurity and the "digital evidence needs" of law enforcement agencies. Apple said in the letter that it's eager to adopt the report's recommendations, including making upgrades to its law enforcement training program. This includes developing an online training module for police that mirrors Apple's current in-person training, according to the letter and to details on the company's website.

"This will assist Apple in training a larger number of law enforcement agencies and officers globally, and ensure that our company's information and guidance can be updated to reflect the rapidly changing data landscape," the site says. Apple also reiterated in the letter that it's "committed to protecting the security and privacy of our users" and that company initiatives and "the work we do to assist investigations uphold this fundamental commitment."

Comments

What could possibly go wrong?

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

I mean, seriously, have we not learned anything about the government's, or any government's ability to abuse their power?

Catching up with the times

[Tutter]

Most other SNPs have web portals for LE requests, this is to streamline it for Apple and for LE. The web portal doesn't give the requester the information, so no fear there, it serves a different purpose. In order to get the user data, judicial authorization still has to be provided and once they have that, it will be forwarded to the requesting Agency / Officer.
The potential to abuse X is persistent - it always exists. The risks to protect the public and aid LE with investigations outweighs any privacy concern... ultimately, it's pretty simple - if you didn't do anything, LE won't bother with your data as they have enough on the go with actual investigations. If you did do something and they have judicial authorization, then they should get to your data.

Re:Catching up with the times

[Miles_O'Toole]

...ultimately, it's pretty simple - if you didn't do anything, LE won't bother with your data as they have enough on the go with actual investigations.

People who use this canard as a justification for wholesale, casual invasion of citizens' privacy should be pissed on from a height.

To a cop, president, well-connected church leader or even whole government, "If you didn't do anything" often means, "If you protest", "If your sexuality doesn't match what I say it should be", "If your skin is the wrong colour" or a dozen other alleged threats to the public good.

People who don't understand this are either hopelessly naive or members of the power structure. They almost certainly have something to gain by persuading people the privacy of a free citizen in a free country to go about their legal business without being targeted in one way or another by the government has no value. In fact it is the cornerstone of a free society.

Sometimes freedom has a cost. In today's world, that cost is more often paid by civilians than by police or the military. Accept this, or accept that you do not deserve to be free.

Re:My goodness, what could possible go wrong?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Why scare people? Because it has happened before. Cops looking up details of celebrities because they are bored, or details on their ex' new boyfriend to see if there's anything that can ruin that relationship, or in case of bent cops: details on cases having to do with their criminal friends. Some of these cops have been caught because there was good (fine grained) authorisation mechanism in place, a detailed audit trail, and alerts on suspicious activities. But a lot of these systems don't have any of that. So: we scare people so they demand that sufficient security and monitoring is put in place.

Re:As opposed to

[nospam007]

"How they did it before? They have no idea how to work with the police?"

It's just a small script returning a line saying:

'Sorry, the data you want is encrypted and we don't have the password.'

It replaces 200 telephone operators reading that line from a monitor.