Congress Seeks Transparency Over UK Encryption Orders
Congress and the American public have a right to know if UK authorities are asking tech companies to build backdoors into their encrypted technology, a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers said Thursday.
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Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Alex Padilla, D-Calif, and Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., signed the letter to the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal. They asked for transparency regarding UK encryption requests for companies like Apple and Google (see 2503130014).
“Given the significant technical complexity of this issue, as well as the important national security harms that will result from weakening cybersecurity defenses, it is imperative that the U.K.’s technical demands of Apple -- and of any other U.S. companies -- be subjected to robust, public analysis and debate by cybersecurity experts,” they wrote.
The IPT didn’t comment.