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Cybersecurity & Standards, Government Surveillance

Tech companies are slamming a proposed UK terrorism law. Here’s why.

Washington Post:

The world’s biggest tech firms — including Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo — are pressing for changes to a proposed British law aimed at expanding the government’s electronic surveillance powers.

Rather than protect well-meaning citizens, the bill will force tech firms to hack their own customers — and in the process break the laws of other countries, some of the companies said in filings Monday to a U.K. panel charged with reviewing the proposed legislation. The bill could also set a precedent for other governments and even repressive regimes to impose draconian requirements on tech firms concerning user data.

“It also somewhat brazenly seeks to extend UK law to the entire Internet by allowing UK authorities to demand non-UK businesses retain data about their users’ behaviors online,” said Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist at the U.S.-based Center for Democracy and Technology.

Full article here.