The most important decision in tech is being made today, but you won’t be told about it.

The most important decision in global technology is being made by a single UK judge in a small room, a decision happening in near-total privacy with no transparency at all.

What’s at stake is the use of data encryption, personal privacy, and the huge risk of being forced to install backdoors into tech products. If this sounds like something that could once have happened behind the Iron Curtain, think again: This world-impacting decision is all part of what seems to be a plan to turn the nation into a surveillance society.

“For your protection.”

If you’ve been following along, you already know what’s at stake. 

Welcome to spook Britain

The UK is demanding that Apple open up its systems for surveillance. Apple is opposed to this demand and has already withdrawn one of the services it offered the UK as a result. Today, the company will appeal the demand of the UK Home Office in a top secret court. The public won’t be able to attend that hearing, won’t be able to comment on the case, will not be told the results — and Apple is forbidden from discussing it.

It’s a real case of authoritarian overreach on steroids.

The fact that it is happening at all will embolden governments globally to demand Apple, Google, and others install their own back doors, reducing digital security and privacy — one leaked backdoor exploit at a time. Eventually, it will threaten digital commerce.  

Being secret, we don’t know if other companies are facing the same demand, but it’s reasonable to assume that if Apple is facing such stress, then Google will be facing the same thing. We just won’t be told.

Outside of public scrutiny, the UK government is making a decision that threatens serious negative consequences across most parts of life. US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard last month called the matter a “clear and egregious violation of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties.” 

The special relationship

In the shadowy halls and byzantine pathways infested by those who have acquired power, discussions are taking place. Only last night, a cross-party group wrote a furious letter to the UK government demanding that today’s decision-making process be done in public. Signatories included US Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Warren Davidson (R-OH), and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).

“We write to request the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) remove the cloak of secrecy related to motives given to American technology companies by the United Kingdom which infringes on free speech and privacy, undermines important United States Congress and UK parliamentary oversight, harms national security, and ultimately, undermines the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom,” they warned.

The demand the UK is making does, of course, undermine that relationship, as Apple will be obliged to offer up the personal data of any of its users in the world.

Liberty and Privacy International have filed a legal complaint with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) demanding the case be heard in public, wrote the Financial Times.  Caroline Wilson Palow, legal director of Privacy International, argued: “The UK’s use of a secret order to undermine security for people worldwide is unacceptable and disproportionate.”

Too little, too late

There has been some consultation, albeit at the 11th hour. Bloomberg reports that UK officials are rushing around attempting to win support for its plans. Pointing to the UK’s non-existent constitution, these discussions lean deeply into tradition and expectation of privacy and balanced use of these powers. To my mind, these promises are tantamount to purchasing a vehicle from a stranger down at your local bar; there’s no trust without guarantee, and I see no guarantee in what has been promised. 

The UK side has, in typical myopic fashion, argued that criticism of the attempt is “misinformed.” If that’s true, then the UK has itself to blame for this attempted digital smash-and-grab against global privacy without any significant oversight at all. 

Officials argue that they don’t want blanket access and will only request data concerning the most serious crimes. That’s not really the point, of course – the point is that there are no safe back doors; vulnerabilities — even government designed ones — will be identified and abused.

One back door is also one too many, as when one government gains such access, all governments will demand the same thing.

We will never know if we are safe

What makes this act of self-harm worse is that the world won’t be told of the decision, no matter which way it goes. The UK won’t say anything, and Apple is not permitted to say anything. 

That means ordinary people like me and you will never know if our digital lives remain private and secure. But governments and intelligence agencies will know, which means, inevitably, that attempts to find and exploit whatever UK-mandated backdoors are put in place will intensify. Why would any other government not attempt to exploit these holes?

Most of us won’t know anything, until the eventual and inevitable day these backdoors are weaponized and used in a vast global attack.

Far from making the world safer, this deluded demand leaves the world open to an attack that makes the Crowdstrike debacle look like a rehearsal. The bottom line? Because we won’t know how this judgement goes, we need never feel safe online again — all thanks to a decision taken in top secret by one person.

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