A bill will be introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives that would stop efforts in the California and New York state assemblies to force smartphone manufacturers to be able to decrypt and provide access to customer data stored on their devices, Reuters reports.
Called the ENCRYPT Act, the bill is sponsored by Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Blake Farenthold (R-Texas). The bill states that it would “prevent any state or locality from mandating that a ‘manufacturer, developer, seller, or provider’ design or alter the security of a product so it can be decrypted or surveilled by authorities.”
"It is completely technologically unworkable for individual states to mandate different encryption standards in consumer products," Rep. Lieu told Reuters. "Apple can't make a different smartphone for California and New York and the rest of the country."
Apple has been vehemently against the implement of anti-privacy regulation, and has made its encryption policy well known. It recently resisted unlocking an older iPhone despite the request coming from the US Department of Justice, and since iOS 8, have been unable to decrypt an iPhone or iPad without a user’s passcode.
“Here's the situation on your smartphone today, on your iPhone. There's… health…financial information…intimate conversations with your family, or your co-workers,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said to Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes . “If there's a way to get in, then somebody will find the way in. There have been people that suggest that we should have a back door. But the reality is if you put a backdoor in that backdoor is for everybody, for good guys and bad guys.”
