Governments have been wanting access to your encrypted chats for a while now. The FBI, Department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder have all made attempts to bypass Apple's encryption policy, which automatically encrypts every message sent via Apple software, as well as protects users from having the police request a copy of your texts. Now the UK's Prime Minister may be joining them in disliking Apple's policy.
According to the Independent, Prime Minister David Cameron is not a fan of Apple's policy. When asked about security issues while on the campaign trail, Cameron stated that "The [Charlie Thebdo] attacks in Paris demonstrated the scale of the threat that we face and the need to have robust powers through our intelligence and security agencies in order to keep our people safe."
Cameron went on to say that "he would stop the use of methods of communication that cannot be read by the security services even if they have a warrant". This would include apps like WhatsApp, Snapchat, iMessages and FaceTime.
It's uncertain if Cameron will actually act upon this policy. However, it would correlate with his campaign focus on creating a new "Snoopers Charter", legislation that would allow security services to access Internet communications regardless of whether there is an actual threat. It would also require phone and Internet companies to maintain records of user activity, though not of the actual content.
The conservative portion of Parliament has attempted to submit similar bills in the past, but were blocked by social liberals.
