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I think it's a bit funny that German government is complaining to Apple about a feature that is not even going to be active in Europe while simultaneously consi

by ribit 5y ago

I think it's a bit funny that German government is complaining to Apple about a feature that is not even going to be active in Europe while simultaneously considering a law that requires communication providers to scan all emails and messages for inappropriate content...

bildung 5y ago
It doesn't matter whether the feature is active right now - its presence means it is only a matter of time until agencies will want to have access.
- ribit 5y ago
  And that's why we need to push our respective representatives to adopt laws that prohibit any kind of personal content scanning without a warrant. Personally, I would be ok if this scanning were applied to cloud-stored data that is shared to the public (e.g. social media platforms), but that's about it. From the technical standpoint, Apple's implementation seems sound, although it does raise strong concerns about the future applications of the technology. Strong privacy laws can prevent abuse.
cheschire 5y ago
This is hardly surprising. Governments are not unified bodies, they are inherently built of groups of at worst directly opposing or at best mildly aligned individuals claiming membership to some political ideal and/or club.
HMH 5y ago
You are right, I'd be pretty surprised if such a statement came from the government itself. But this complaint is actually only from some members of the parliament belonging to the Digital Agenda committee with the chairman being a member of the opposition.
- type0 5y ago
  Yeah, in this case the difference between parliament and the government is substantial and OP doesn't seem to know there is one.
mschuster91 5y ago
> a feature that is not even going to be active in Europe Just wait until some bought-off cronies in the EU Parliament pushes for this feature. Never forget the Article 13 events!
0x0 5y ago
How is "in Europe" determined? Will it trigger for an american appleid while present in Germany? Will it trigger for a German appleid while present in the US?
- tpush 5y ago
  Since it concerns iCloud, it probably depends on your Apple ID region. But I don't think Apple has stated anything conclusive.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  The GDPR would be the model to follow I suppose. In that case the rules would apply to anyone physically present in the EU whether a citizen or not.
  - 0x0 5y ago
    So how would that be determined, especially if you disable location services and/or use a VPN?
oytis 5y ago
That's the tradeoff every government has. Everyone wants to be able to track their people, but not let their people being tracked by someone else.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
skrause 5y ago
> I think it's a bit funny that German government is complaining to Apple The German government isn't complaining. Looking at the original German article it was a single parliament member from an opposition party that wrote a letter to Apple.
- prox 5y ago
  So the title is misleading in that case. “German Parliament Member” would be better.
  - cyanydeez 5y ago
    welcome to the internet
- Archelaos 5y ago
  A new parliament will be elected in Germany on 26 September. Current polls do not see a majority for the ruling coalition of CDU/CSU (Conservatives) and SPD (Labour). It is expected that either the FDP (Liberals) or the Grünen (Greens) or both will be part of the next government. Both the FDP (the party of the MP who wrote the letter) and the Grünen have been very supportive of data protection and privacy in opposition. We will see if they stick to it in government.
webmobdev 5y ago
While it does sound hypocritical, it is good to see the democratic process working as intending, and some politicians trying to find the right balance between the "needs vs wants" of those elected to power. Yes, there is a need to thwart the production and distibution of child sexual abuse material. Yes, there is a need to monitor communication (following due process) to protect a democratic nation against those who want to harm it. A government in power however, will often seek to go beyond its "needs". In this particular context, they want, and demand, the right to unleash surveillance on everyone, without any due diligence or monitoring. This obviously has more to do with their desire for more power and control, than the actual needs of the nation. While "cloud scanning" has some how been grudgingly accepted by many of us, Apple's CSAM tools go beyond that and lays the foundation for a future surveillance network that the BigTech and power-hungry governments have long been desiring. With this kind of technology (with legal backing) the BigTech get unrestrained access to our personal data that they can monetise. The governments gets the power to scan all our devices for content the government deems inappropriate (anything they deem illegal and / or that threatens their hold on power). Apple's CSAM tools are thus a direct assualt on our rights - with it, we are no longer considered "innocent, until proven guilty". We also lose our right against self-incrimination. In a democratic setup, if a government accuses anyone, the burden of proving the accusation is on them. But if Apple's CSAM tools is extended into a surveillance network that is always monitoring for "illegal" content, the whole process will be turned around where we citizens will now have to bear the burden of always proving our innocence. Our rights, and democracy, go for a toss with this. We should laud the politicians who bought up this issue in Germany and are defending the democratic rights and values that we all want to see prevail.
- nix23 5y ago
  >Yes, there is a need to monitor communication (following due process) to protect a democratic nation against those who want to harm it. How can one harm a stable democratic nation truth "communication"? Normally it is harmed truth news-outlets and not one to one communication.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    A government often does need to monitor the communication of foreign agents / spies or suspected terrorists to protect the nation. Monitoring one-to-one connection between these kind of agents working against the nation, is a legitimate exercise in the interest of national security. However, who the government can accuse or suspect as a foreign agent or terrorist, to spy on them, should be preferably after following due process through the judiciary.
tomcooks 5y ago
https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/chatcontrol-european-parliament-approves-mass-surveillance-of-private-communications/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/chatcontrol-european-parlia... There you go, next
- petre 5y ago
  So basically only the greens and the lefties voted against this. I'm not going to vote in the next EPP elections as nobody represents my interests.
  - turbinerneiter 5y ago
    I mean the greens and the lefties do, are they not?
    - petre 5y ago
      We have no parties in the greens/efa group and the lefties are just the true believers that miss the times before '90, commonly held means of production, the Stasi, so no. Representative democracy fail.
  - ranguna 5y ago
    Just vote blank
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
riedel 5y ago
This was not the German executive but it's legislative. There is a huge difference here.
riedel 5y ago
The guy who chairs the committee and send the letter is from the opposition (free democrats). Ps: sorry if I double posted. I got an error the first time around and found not see the post.

by ribit 5y ago

bildung 5y ago

It doesn't matter whether the feature is active right now - its presence means it is only a matter of time until agencies will want to have access.

ribit 5y ago
And that's why we need to push our respective representatives to adopt laws that prohibit any kind of personal content scanning without a warrant. Personally, I would be ok if this scanning were applied to cloud-stored data that is shared to the public (e.g. social media platforms), but that's about it. From the technical standpoint, Apple's implementation seems sound, although it does raise strong concerns about the future applications of the technology. Strong privacy laws can prevent abuse.

cheschire 5y ago

This is hardly surprising. Governments are not unified bodies, they are inherently built of groups of at worst directly opposing or at best mildly aligned individuals claiming membership to some political ideal and/or club.

HMH 5y ago

You are right, I'd be pretty surprised if such a statement came from the government itself. But this complaint is actually only from some members of the parliament belonging to the Digital Agenda committee with the chairman being a member of the opposition.

type0 5y ago
Yeah, in this case the difference between parliament and the government is substantial and OP doesn't seem to know there is one.

mschuster91 5y ago

> a feature that is not even going to be active in Europe Just wait until some bought-off cronies in the EU Parliament pushes for this feature. Never forget the Article 13 events!

0x0 5y ago

How is "in Europe" determined? Will it trigger for an american appleid while present in Germany? Will it trigger for a German appleid while present in the US?

tpush 5y ago
Since it concerns iCloud, it probably depends on your Apple ID region. But I don't think Apple has stated anything conclusive.
kwhitefoot 5y ago
The GDPR would be the model to follow I suppose. In that case the rules would apply to anyone physically present in the EU whether a citizen or not.
- 0x0 5y ago
  So how would that be determined, especially if you disable location services and/or use a VPN?

oytis 5y ago

That's the tradeoff every government has. Everyone wants to be able to track their people, but not let their people being tracked by someone else.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

skrause 5y ago

> I think it's a bit funny that German government is complaining to Apple The German government isn't complaining. Looking at the original German article it was a single parliament member from an opposition party that wrote a letter to Apple.

prox 5y ago
So the title is misleading in that case. “German Parliament Member” would be better.
- cyanydeez 5y ago
  welcome to the internet
Archelaos 5y ago
A new parliament will be elected in Germany on 26 September. Current polls do not see a majority for the ruling coalition of CDU/CSU (Conservatives) and SPD (Labour). It is expected that either the FDP (Liberals) or the Grünen (Greens) or both will be part of the next government. Both the FDP (the party of the MP who wrote the letter) and the Grünen have been very supportive of data protection and privacy in opposition. We will see if they stick to it in government.

webmobdev 5y ago

While it does sound hypocritical, it is good to see the democratic process working as intending, and some politicians trying to find the right balance between the "needs vs wants" of those elected to power. Yes, there is a need to thwart the production and distibution of child sexual abuse material. Yes, there is a need to monitor communication (following due process) to protect a democratic nation against those who want to harm it. A government in power however, will often seek to go beyond its "needs". In this particular context, they want, and demand, the right to unleash surveillance on everyone, without any due diligence or monitoring. This obviously has more to do with their desire for more power and control, than the actual needs of the nation. While "cloud scanning" has some how been grudgingly accepted by many of us, Apple's CSAM tools go beyond that and lays the foundation for a future surveillance network that the BigTech and power-hungry governments have long been desiring. With this kind of technology (with legal backing) the BigTech get unrestrained access to our personal data that they can monetise. The governments gets the power to scan all our devices for content the government deems inappropriate (anything they deem illegal and / or that threatens their hold on power). Apple's CSAM tools are thus a direct assualt on our rights - with it, we are no longer considered "innocent, until proven guilty". We also lose our right against self-incrimination. In a democratic setup, if a government accuses anyone, the burden of proving the accusation is on them. But if Apple's CSAM tools is extended into a surveillance network that is always monitoring for "illegal" content, the whole process will be turned around where we citizens will now have to bear the burden of always proving our innocence. Our rights, and democracy, go for a toss with this. We should laud the politicians who bought up this issue in Germany and are defending the democratic rights and values that we all want to see prevail.

nix23 5y ago
>Yes, there is a need to monitor communication (following due process) to protect a democratic nation against those who want to harm it. How can one harm a stable democratic nation truth "communication"? Normally it is harmed truth news-outlets and not one to one communication.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  A government often does need to monitor the communication of foreign agents / spies or suspected terrorists to protect the nation. Monitoring one-to-one connection between these kind of agents working against the nation, is a legitimate exercise in the interest of national security. However, who the government can accuse or suspect as a foreign agent or terrorist, to spy on them, should be preferably after following due process through the judiciary.

tomcooks 5y ago

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/chatcontrol-european-parliament-approves-mass-surveillance-of-private-communications/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/chatcontrol-european-parlia... There you go, next

petre 5y ago
So basically only the greens and the lefties voted against this. I'm not going to vote in the next EPP elections as nobody represents my interests.
- turbinerneiter 5y ago
  I mean the greens and the lefties do, are they not?
  - petre 5y ago
    We have no parties in the greens/efa group and the lefties are just the true believers that miss the times before '90, commonly held means of production, the Stasi, so no. Representative democracy fail.
- ranguna 5y ago
  Just vote blank

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

riedel 5y ago

This was not the German executive but it's legislative. There is a huge difference here.

riedel 5y ago

The guy who chairs the committee and send the letter is from the opposition (free democrats). Ps: sorry if I double posted. I got an error the first time around and found not see the post.