‘First buddy’ of Donald Trump has again attacked the Labour prime minister - this time in a row over technology and privacy. At one point he called for the King to step in and dissolve parliament after Labour rejected a call for a national inquiry. Mr Musk has engaged in a long-running war of words with the PM, including last summer when he suggested that the UK was on the brink of ‘civil war’ in the wake of the Southport stabbings.
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The post Mr Musk retweeted warned: “A global privacy nightmare is unfolding. The UK government secretly ordered Apple to backdoor encrypted iCloud storage worldwide… This affects 2 BILLION USERS”. Mr Musk added: “This is crazy.”. On Friday it emerged the government had ordered Apple to allow it access to users’ encrypted files, prompting allegations of an “unprecedented attack” on privacy rights.
The Home Office issued the order last month under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, which enables authorities to compel assistance from companies when it needs to collect evidence, The Washington Post reported. In a highly controversial move, the order asked for a blanket ability to view encrypted material, not just help accessing a specific account. The Home Office said it would neither confirm or deny the existence of such an order.
Apple has said it regards privacy as a "fundamental human right" and that its current set up means that no-one else can access a user's data, not even the company itself. In recent years, police and security services around the globe world have called for more access to encrypted communications, warning they are used by terrorists and child abusers to evade justice. But tech firms have staunchly defended users’ right to privacy and warned that any “backdoor” into systems, as they are known, could also be exploited by criminals or authoritarian regimes.
Rebecca Vincent, from civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said that ordering Apple to create a backdoor “that would effectively break encryption for millions of users - (would be) an unprecedented attack on privacy rights that has no place in any democracy.”. The Home Office said: “We do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices.”.
