The Hong Kong Government Probably Can't Hack Your iPhone
But, it can request your texts and emails without disclosing if a court warrant was acquired.
The FBI proved this week that although the Apple iOS is built without a backdoor—a way to retrieve information from an encrypted mobile phone—it's possible to get in, anyway. While the FBI couldn't get in through a backdoor, they found other means to unlock an iPhone 5c. We're not sure how, yet, and neither is Apple. How will this change our right to privacy and information security—and is this really just an American issue?
We set out to find if it’s possible for Hong Kong’s government to also find a way into our phones.
Cheng Lee-ming, an electronic engineering professor at the City University of Hong Kong, doubts that the government has the technology to create a backdoor. “It normally requires the expertise of an insider from the system developer to make this work. Take the Apple’s iOS system as an example—a backdoor has never been built in the first place to prevent a breach of security.”
Legislative Council member Charles Peter Mok, an information technology lawmaker, makes plain why Apple's no-backdoor design is the best option for a phone's operating system. “Creating a backdoor is like boring a hole into a house. It will eventually come back to haunt you,” he says.
Mok says that when the police seize a phone for criminal investigation, they usually seek the help of technical consultants to crack it through operating system loopholes. “Not that they can hustle Apple into helping them,” he quips. How far, then, can the government go to monitor our daily communication?
Thanks to the Interception of Communications and Surveillance Ordinance, we don’t have to worry about the government arbitrarily eavesdropping on our gossip. The Ordinance says telecommunications companies and internet service providers do not have the right to intercept their customers’ communications—unless instructed by law enforcement. But, there is a gray area.