ios7_activation_lockWhen Apple announced Activation Lock, government officials seemed to be pretty happy with the feature and if the reports are to be believed, it seems that smartphone theft has actually decreased in the wake of the new feature being offered in iOS 7. However it seems that not everyone in the government is too happy about Apple’s more recent security changes.

As you might have heard, Apple has announced a new way of encrypting their smartphones which would essentially make it impossible for the Cupertino company to hand over your information, even if they wanted to. Attorney General Eric Holder is one of those critics. According to a report from Reuters, it seems that Holder feels that the new device encryption is “too secure” and that law enforcement should have a way to access these devices if they need to.

Holder could also be trying to look for middle ground and was quoted as saying, “It is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy.” Apple isn’t the only company he is worried about as Google themselves have recently announced a similar encryption feature that would be arriving in the Android L update.

For those wondering about the encryption, basically Apple and Google will no longer hold the encryption keys to their devices. What this means is that only the owner of the phone or those who knows the phone’s passcode will be able to access the data. Of course this is assuming that your data is stored locally. While this is great news for privacy advocates, we can only imagine that it will also complicate things for law enforcement.

Filed in Apple >Cellphones. Read more about .

Discover more from Ubergizmo

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading