India could grab for iPhone source code — or worse

The Indian government is denying a well-sourced Reuters story claiming it has demanded that Apple, Samsung, Google, and Xiaomi share the source code of their smartphone operating systems to comply with 83 new security measures. Reuters claimed the measures also required companies to notify the government of any major software updates before introducing them. 

The problem with these demands is that the first inherently undermines platform security, while the second will impact the introduction of new features and, perhaps more consequentially, slow the release of security updates. In other words, the demands would make the platforms less secure and harder to keep secure.

Naturally, industry group MAIT, which represents the tech companies, is opposing the demands, citing corporate confidentiality and global privacy restrictions. 

What is a legitimate concern?

India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT has rebutted the report, saying final regulations will only be declared once consultations take place. It confirmed that its talking with smartphone makers to identify what it calls the “most appropriate regulatory framework for mobile security” (whatever that means). 

Indian IT Secretary S. Krishnan told Reuters, “Any legitimate concerns of the industry will be addressed with an open mind.” The word “legitimate” appears to be doing a great deal of heavy lifting in that statement.

Reuters cited multiple sources for its claim, which makes it sound as if these proposals have already become serious, even if they are also being opposed.

India last month tried and failed to force smartphone manufacturers to preinstall the state-owned Sanchar Saathi app on their devices, including on older devices. Apple and other smartphone manufacturers refused to comply and India’s government seems to have put that plan on ice. 

Keep rockin’ in the free world

India’s latest consultation seems to reflect an ongoing trend among so-called “free world” administrations for increasingly advanced surveillance powers: UK subjects, for example, still don’t know to what extent Apple has been forced to undermine encryption on its devices there. 

Apple seems almost unique among the tech firms in that it actively opposes this evolving dystopia. That’s because Apple understands that privacy and security are essential to digital transformation. It is unfortunate that in many cases those responsible for drawing up policy talk in soundbites, rather than thinking through the consequences of the decisions they make.

The everything device 

Almost 20 years ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the iPhone as “an iPod, a phone, an internet communicator.” The world swooned at the time because that one device was all those things, and more.

Today it is our wallet, our identity, our social media, our likes, dislikes, fitness levels, bank accounts, as well as our personal, sexual, and political identity.  The phone in your pocket gathers more information about you than you knew existed and has become the primary portal to our digital world. 

With so much information packed inside each and every smartphone, no wonder governments everywhere want to take a look inside. If there isn’t an enemy to justify such intrusion, authoritarians will invent one. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll talk about protection, taxation, or salvation to justify their attempt to turn everyone’s experience on a digital planet into usable data. 

AI companies and surveillance-as-a-service companies also want this information. In effect, you have become data to be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed, and numbered.

Which is which?

Achieving a constructive balance between personal privacy and state security is proving to be a huge challenge for Apple, Samsung, and others in tech. The sad reality is that we seem to be on a nihilistic race to the bottom, in that even theoretically enlightened democracies appear happy to take the same approach to tech-driven surveillance they condemn in other nations. 

Is it even possible now to tell which is which?

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