Apple working on Anti-snooping Technology to protect Users’ privacy: Report

Apple’s been in the news lately regarding users privacy, be it the giant ad placed at CES this year or in its older iPhone prototypes being used by hackers and security researchers to hack the vulnerabilities in the latest iOS. However, there’s a new report by The Telegraph that sheds some more information on Apple’s further steps in protecting Users’ privacy.

The report had revealed that Apple is working on developing an anti-snooping technology that would make law enforcement personnel hard to track the concerned users’ location using mobile number or locations or even text messages. Further, Apple had recently patented a technology with which signals between the respective phones and carrier services can be encrypted that eventually helps users from law enforcement agencies’ tracking capabilities.

This patented technology from Apple would obstruct ‘Stingray’ boxes, which are meant to mimic phone masts that are further being used to track users’ location and can also be used for listening to users’ calls as well. The report further reveals that several UK-based police forces using these Stingrays a.k.a IMSI catchers on the phone users; however, the extent of its use by the police forces isn’t still clear yet.

According to the report, these devices enact as mobile phone towers to connect to the actual phones and later intercept the signal to pinpoint a phone users’ location or messages or phone calls and more. Collection of such data are proved to be risky and controversial since their collection of data are considerably large in size are prone to hackers or criminals for misusage.

This is where the new patented technology from Apple comes in as the report suggests, the new technology would apply end-to-end encryption to the phone’s unique ID and mobile networks, which eventually blocks the stingray boxes and doesn’t allow law enforcement agencies to eavesdrop on users’ privacy – like listening to calls, finding their location and going through the texts as well.

For those who are unaware, back in 2016, Apple didn’t allow FBI to go through a terrorist’s (who involved in an attack in San Bernardino) iPhone 5c since it would be a breach of privacy, which eventually led FBI to utilize another digital security firm to get into the iPhone.

This new patented anti-snoop technology developed by Apple certainly seems promising; however, considering the practicality when it comes into action is still skeptical. That’s because this technology inevitably comes as in favor or as an advantage for the consumers perspective but in such earlier mentioned illegitimate instances it would be more difficult to law enforcement agency to get into an Apple’s iPhone.

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