On September 13, a House panel that is orchestrating a broad antitrust investigation over technology businesses demanded that companies like Facebook, Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon hand over a long list of records showing their business practices. This was in response to a bipartisan investigation that was launched to look into whether or not these large companies are hindering competition in the technological landscape via their business practices.
This isn’t the first time that government and tech have collided. Where private information and business is concerned, we have seen many meetings-of-the-minds over time, with plenty more to come I’m sure.
On Tuesday, February 16, 2016, Apple received a writ from a U.S. magistrate ordering the company to create a special software that could allow the iPhone of Syed Farook, a suspect in the case of the San Bernardino shooting that saw the deaths of 14 people, to be unlocked by the FBI. This software would allow for an unlimited number of password attempts so that the FBI could gain access to this iPhone without damaging the data it contained. Apple’s chief executive officer, Tim Cook, denied this request stating that once the software was used, it could be hacked, leaked, or stolen, and even just creating it would put millions of Apple users’ data at risk. Apple fought this ruling and won, stating that after iOS 8, not even the company itself could bypass a user’s passcode to gain access to their information.
On August 17, 2018, the U.S. government tried to make Facebook break their encryption on their Messenger app so that the government could listen in on voice calls of a suspect in a gang investigation in Fresno, California. In 2006, an appeals court ruled that phone companies were required to allow police eavesdropping and extended the ruling to some large providers of Voice over Internet Protocol as well, like cable and other broadband carriers. Facebook denied the government’s request, and a judge ruled in their favor, but records with the reasoning are still under seal.
On December 11, 2018, Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, testified in front of Congress after the company had come under fire for being interested in making a censored search engine for China, recent security breaches, Google’s bulk data collection practices, and other topics including antitrust and competition. Instead of addressing many of these hard-hitting issues, Congress grilled Pichai on matters pertaining to rumors that Google filters out conservative viewpoints and showcasing criticism of conservative policies, which the company has continuously denied. Twitter users offered other ideas for concerns that Congress should have addressed as well.
On Wednesday, September 4, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter met with U.S. officials to discuss steps that all are taking independently and collectively to ensure that the 2020 presidential election is not tampered with after Russia interfered with the 2016 election by spreading disinformation on social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter. Google specifically is putting money into systems that will detect attempts of phishing and hacking, identify foreign interference on Google platforms, and prevent digital attacks on candidates’ campaigns, but some believe that by including these voices in the conversation, we will end up with another botched election.
While this post could likely go on for hundreds of paragraphs pouring into times when the government and tech leaders worked with or against each other, these are some of the more recent and important instances. With the privacy of users and citizens constantly under scrutiny by both sides, I expect to see many more collisions of law and tech in our future.
Privacy and Control in Today's Online Climate 