WhatsApp seized on US allegations against Huawei to defend encryption against the government's demands for backdoors
A WhatsApp spokesperson specifically pointed the Journal to the Huawei case as an example why WhatsApp shouldn't grant the government's wish. The argument runs that backdoors pose a broad security risk as even if they only intended to be used by law enforcement, they could be exploited by other malicious actors.
Privacy experts also worry backdoors could be used as tools for mass surveillance by authoritarian regimes. "The US government's concern about possible backdoors in Huawei-built networks only underscores why it is untenable for the government to demand that US-based tech companies create backdoors for domestic law enforcement agencies," Andrew Crocker, Senior Staff Attorney at the digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Business Insider in a statement. "Once built, these mechanisms can be co-opted by governments around the world.
Facebook isn't the only tech company fending off demands to break encryption. Apple also tangled with the government in 2015 when the FBI demanded it help the agency break into a shooter's iPhone. Apple refused, and eventually the FBI dropped its court case against the company, after saying it had found a third party capable of helping it open the phone.
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