No Keys Under Doormats

The row between Silicon Valley tech companies and Obama administration over access to encrypted content in personal devices has ended with the administration conceding its position: The government will not ask technology firms and smartphone manufacturers to install backdoors in smartphones and other digital devices that would allow law enforcement organizations and national security agencies access to personal data.

This decision comes as security experts warn that allowing the government privileged access to encrypted content using backdoors will weaken encryption technologies. Encryption technologies are most prominently used in smart phones, where they shield information like photographs, messages, and other potentially sensitive data. Security experts, who have compared the government’s demand to hiding “keys under doormats,” argue that a backdoor will make it easier for foreign hackers and cybercriminals to target such confidential content.

Ideally, government agencies would have access to encrypted content if it posed a threat to public safety. But allowing the government privileged access to digital devices would make the public more vulnerable by weakening the security mechanisms currently in place. The strong consensus among experts that a special backdoor would give rise to unacceptable risks is clear evidence that the current technology is not compatible with the Obama administration’s original demands. In short, the president was right to back down.

The demand for a privileged backdoor also raises questions about the relationship between tech companies and their users. As the companies themselves have argued, smartphones today contain an enormous amount of peoples’ most personal information. Smartphone manufacturers like Apple have started encrypting all content in their devices, assuring users that neither the company nor the government has improper access. Though public safety would be best served by allowing limited government access to smartphone data in narrow circumstances well defined by statute, the option under consideration by the Obama administration would also give companies broad access to users’ data—a possible breach of the consumer’s privacy.

Ultimately, the Obama administration’s plan failed to make a convincing case on security or privacy grounds. As the cyber-security community has shown, mandating backdoors would risk opening Americans to the same attacks by malicious nation-states and cybercriminals to which the government itself has fallen victim. And backdoors might also undermine the delicate and necessary trust between users and the tech companies that hold so much of their personal data. On all counts, then, the president’s decision was the correct one. Until the technology allows, the practice of leaving keys under doormats in cyberspace will only invite enterprising burglaries.