Florida Bill Would Require Encryption Backdoor

Companion bills in the Florida House and Senate would require social media companies to add backdoors to their security to allow law enforcement to eavesdrop on users’ conversations if they want to.

SB 868 and HB 743 would require social media platforms to decrypt users’ data if asked to by law enforcement (it would require a subpoena, which, basically, is just a formal way to ask and does not require a judge’s approval).

The bill would also require companies to allow parents and guardians to access a child’s account (how, exactly, would Facebook definitively know that I am not your father if I say that I am?), among other bad ideas.

I am sure this bill would provide immunity if, say, they release information to a supposed parent and the result of that is that someone gets murdered. I didn’t think so.

If this passes, Florida would be the first state to try this.

Among the many problems is how do you make sure that the Chinese or just creative hackers don’t figure out how to abuse the backdoor.

Hackers already abuse existing emergency authorities to get data from social media companies. There is no reason to think they won’t abuse this.

Then consider that the Chinese completely compromised the federal government’s mandatory wiretapping system and got information on people up to and including the president and vice president. I am sure that would never happen with this system.

This is an extension of other equally dumb laws that Florida passed last year and which the courts have enjoined as potentially unconstitutional.

One thing is good about these bills and laws. They generate a virtually unlimited source of billable hours for law firms, costing taxpayers a lot of money.

Credit: Tech Crunch

by