Apple will now require a court order or search warrant to give push notification data to law enforcement in a shift from the previous practice of accepting a subpoena to hand over data. In Apple…
Apple will now require a court order or search warrant to give push notification data to law enforcement in a shift from the previous practice of accepting a subpoena to hand over data.
A subpeana is a court order so that’s clear as mud.
This is where you clearly see Apple is all about privacy posturing and not much about actual privacy.
If they really cared about their customers' privacy, they would require notification servers registered with APN to push notifications encrypted with a key that only the recipient apps have the private key to. This would be true end-to-end encryption, and Apple would only relay encrypted notifications across, enabling them to deny all subpoenas and any kind of snooping requests from law enforcement on the simple basis that they plain can't even decode the notifications in the first place.
The very fact that they do have access to the notifications in clear-text is undeniable evidence that they actively want and do collaborate with law enforcement.
Meaning Apple's stance on privacy is utter BS - something anybody with a modicum of critical thinking suspected from the start, but now the evidence is crystal-clear.
The change comes about a week after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, warning his office received a tip last year that foreign governments were requested Apple and Google for their records of smartphone notifications.
Push notifications are used by a variety of Apple applications and third-party apps to alert users.
As Wyden explained in his letter, push notifications are not sent by individual apps but rather through the smartphone’s operating provider.
Google already required a court order for law enforcement to get push notification-related data.
In a statement to The Hill, Wyden applauded Apple’s move to match Google’s policy.
“This is how oversight is supposed to work,” Wyden said, adding later, “Apple is doing the right thing by matching Google and requiring a court order to hand over push notification related data.”
The original article contains 347 words, the summary contains 137 words. Saved 61%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!