Ahmed Amer | Vox

Our Phones Are Not Just Confessionals

2019-03-06T05:15:30-05:00

Recently, both Apple CEO Tim Cook and FBI Director Jim Comey have said that the American people should weigh in on the questions raised by the Apple-FBI debate. That claim makes one thing clear: It’s essential for the general public to appreciate the issues at stake.

This controversy isn’t an argument about whether the government should be able to thoroughly surveil a criminal. Nor is it really an argument about any technology much more modern than writing. The core of the controversy is the right of law-abiding citizens to be secure in their own private thoughts.

The core of the controversy is the right of law-abiding citizens to be secure in their own private thoughts.

Imagine a powerful ruler demanding that a priest divulge what parishioners said during confession. Our society has decided that the priest would not be expected to betray the people’s trust. But what if the ruler demanded to learn only what was said by a man who had clearly committed a horrific and evil crime (in the interests of possibly preventing other such crimes and ensuring the safety of the rest of the flock)? Would we compel the priest to tell? (And what if that ruler had previously placed microphones in confessionals, had been caught lying about it, and was now promising not to use this individual request as a legal or political wedge to get more such concessions in future?)

You might argue that our phones — or, more broadly, all our technological tools that can be safeguarded by encryption — are not confessionals. What are they, then?

Ask yourself whether you know anyone who suffers from stress and seeks to cope with it by unburdening themselves of their weightiest thoughts through a personal journal. Ask yourself if you, or anyone you know, finds order in a chaotic word through written meditations, reflections or creative writing of any form. Then ask yourself how free you would feel continuing such practices in an electronic world where you could have no reasonable assurance that your private writing was indeed private.

Those who would effectively prohibit widespread access to strong encryption, would thereby deny peace of mind to any innocent people who might otherwise have sought such solace: It is the equivalent of claiming that such people have no right to keep a written secret. And that basic right is what’s truly at stake here, for in spite of the uninformed opinions of those who might believe otherwise, there is simply no way for any security workaround (whether it be direct, or via a seemingly more convoluted route like that requested by the FBI) to be restricted to an individual case.

Prohibiting widespread access to strong encryption is the equivalent of claiming that such people have no right to keep a written secret.

We are used to the idea that law enforcement should be able to surveil communication when they demonstrate a need to do so. But when it comes to phones as personal data stores, we are crossing a line from surveillance of communication with others, to demanding access to data that might never be communicated. Denying people access to strong encryption would mean just that: It is equivalent to claiming that nobody has a right to confidently keep a written secret. Such a claim poses clear risks of harm for many innocents, while ultimately posing little more than a dubious inconvenience for those who would seek to employ encryption for evil ends. Anyone with the necessary skill and training could conceivably keep their words private from before their fingertips ever touched a keyboard. Coded language, for example, has long preceded modern encryption. And what if the words are written in a language only the writer could decipher? Would it be right to compel someone to divulge the meaning of such private thoughts, simply because the thoughts were written down?

This question lies at the heart of a distinction that is easily ignored. A phone is not just a communication device; it is also a data store. As such, it is increasingly an extension of our minds and memories, and it is more like a personal journal, one that is ever more intimately linked to our minds and our bodies. We are likely to have more such personal data stores accompanying more people through their daily routines. In fact, the privacy of such personal data stores, whether they are borne on our person, worn on our clothes or otherwise integrated with our bodies and minds to any degree, is even more important than the privacy of a consciously written journal. These new personal journals are ever richer in intimate detail, and ever less written by our hands.

Phones are more than communication devices. They are portable, personal data stores, and it is as such personal data repositories that access to them is being sought. More than journals, they are nearly ever-present witnesses to our daily movements and increasingly serve as extensions of our memories. Such devices are, and will continue to become, ever more an intimate companion in whom people unwittingly and increasingly confide. So whether one is aware of it or not, a phone can easily be seen as a portable confessional. This means that the line being crossed by legal ploys to gain access “just this once,” or naive pseudo-technical arguments about the need for a lawful bypass to strong encryption, is a line that is pushing beyond the realm of the privacy of a person’s communication, and toward a truly obscene intrusion upon an individual’s most private data and even thoughts.

The efforts of the FBI and encryption-demonizing politicians may be rooted in the best of intentions, but they are based on a blatantly unsound technological premise, and the slope upon which they place us leads down a morally repugnant path.

But perhaps the confessional is the wrong analogy today. What is being sought by the FBI is supposedly a single workaround for strong security in a single case. Such a single workaround (whether it’s the software or the legal precedent) can never be guaranteed not to pose a risk for many innocent citizens, and cannot be uncreated. So perhaps a better analogy is that the FBI isn’t like the king seeking access to the confessional, but is instead just a well-meaning agent of justice asking a vaccine lab to create and use a biological weapon that they hope might help against a single evil person, and promising that the risk is worth it and that it’ll never be misused by the wrong people (unlike, say, TSA luggage-lock master keys, federal employee security-clearance records, health databases, retail consumer data, and so on).

It is indeed essential that more people understand the issues at stake here. Fundamentally, this isn’t about one truly horrific crime and the justice its victims so rightly deserve, it’s about whether that justice is served by subverting basic data security for everyone who uses a consumer device featuring strong encryption. It’s about an individual’s right to use strong encryption in a personal data store.

Should personal data storage become so ubiquitous and intimately tied with our lives and actions that it becomes an extension of our memories, hampering popular access to strong encryption destroys an individual’s ability to feel somewhat secure in using such digital memories. The threat of invasive access to such devices is no less obscene than the threat of invasive access to memories that we keep to ourselves, for all it does is mildly inconvenience criminals at the expense of denying everyone the peace of mind of being able to unburden their minds, and hindering their embrace of technologies that might just make someone’s world a little less overwhelming.

The efforts of the FBI and encryption-demonizing politicians may be rooted in the best of intentions, but they are based on a blatantly unsound technological premise, and the slope upon which they place us leads down a morally repugnant path.

Ahmed Amer is an associate professor of computer engineering at Santa Clara University, studies data storage technologies and has also worked on developing low-cost wearable computing and augmented-reality devices. Reach him @aamer.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Resisting Restrictions on the Right to Record

2019-03-06T05:00:03-05:00

Some years ago, not too long after 9/11, I stood before what could be mistaken for a fairy-tale glass castle, a building known as PPG Place in Pittsburgh. I was attempting to photograph it. A rather angry guard approached and challenged me; however, before he could do or say much, two local police officers came to my aid and politely but firmly explained to the guard that the only problem they saw was his harassment of a photographer.

Amid the current debate about police body cameras and the taping of police by citizen videographers, I recall that incident with both gratitude and growing concern.

Following public outcry over shocking footage of several police shootings, we hear increased calls for more police-worn body cameras as a means of increasing officer accountability. At the same time, in the past few weeks there have been several accusations of police officers attempting to prevent members of the public from photographing them — including an instance in which an officer appears to have approached a bystander and then simply grabbed and smashed her cellphone.

But the incidents that raised the public outcry were brought to light not by police-worn body cameras, but by recordings made by members of the public. While recording technology alone is no guarantee of justice, a knee-jerk rush to equip police with video cameras is a half-measure at best. Clear and consistent procedures regarding body camera use are not yet established, making them as much a threat to individual privacy as they are a protection for officers and the public.

And even legislation to prevent tampering would not dissuade a corrupt police officer from deleting footage, or turning off a body camera altogether, if it meant covering up a more serious crime than breaking procedure. It is the accessibility of recording technology to both the police and public that best aids trust and justice. Such technology — in the hands of all — can be both a bad cop’s worst nightmare and a good cop’s best ally.

And yet, at the same time as the calls for police body cameras grow louder, we are seeing Texas lawmakers trying to introduce legislation that prohibits public recording of police from a distance of less than 25 feet. Had such a law been in place back in Pittsburgh when I was trying to photograph a beautiful building, and had I been videotaping instead, would I have become guilty of a crime as the officers rushed to my aid?

Texas is not unique: This sort of legislation has been proposed before from time to time, and multiple citizens have been forced to take legal action against overzealous law enforcement officers who misunderstood the legality of photography and videography in a public space.

The use of recording devices by the public and in public should be much less controversial than the use of police body cameras, but the argument made in support of laws like the one proposed in Texas is that they would protect police from public interference. The reality, however, is that such laws would harm both the public and the police in ways that legislators have probably not anticipated.

Hindering the police in the conduct of their duties is already illegal — whether or not the hindrance involves a camera. If a videographer’s presence interferes with police action, the police can already instruct him or her to, in the words of the ACLU, “cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations.”

Banning all videotaping of police by citizens from a particular distance, however, would only give bad officers a powerful tool to cover improper or illegal actions, while at the same time limiting the availability of evidence that could exonerate and protect good police officers from false allegations.

Beyond the concerns related to police officers, however, such laws would also hinder private citizens’ ability to effectively and thoughtfully integrate the growing use of cameras and data storage technologies into their lives.

This is an issue of growing importance because we, as a society, are adapting to technology. Our behaviors and brains are actively changing in response to technology. Wearable cameras that augment our ability to recall moments and experiences, for example, are no longer the stuff of science fiction.

A quick tally of the electronics I currently carry reveals three different cameras, four different radios potentially transmitting and receiving data, and five different data-storage devices (and lest you think I am highly unusual in my use of technology, you should know that I have only tallied a phone, a watch, and a small travel camera). These devices help me. For some, they are essential life-enhancing tools.

As I and others grow to rely on these devices in our day-to-day interactions, how will laws such as the proposed Texas ban on taping police from a certain distance affect us? Instead of preventing the “hindering” of police, such laws are likely to dissuade people from augmenting their senses and memories with helpful technology. In the process, they would criminalize uses of technology that would otherwise improve quality of life or even alleviate medical conditions.

For example, should police officers arrest a passenger wearing a Google Glass device (say, in a car stopped for a traffic violation) for videotaping them from too close a distance? What if the person wearing that device were an autistic child using it to get prompts regarding the facial expressions of those around her? (Google Glass apps have already been created for that particular purpose.) Would that child be “hindering” the police?

Would such users require a medical waiver to exempt them from a law like the one introduced in Texas? Would people with cognitive or sensory disorders have to do without an assistive device in the presence of law enforcement officers, or forego its benefits in public altogether lest an officer pass by too closely?

Given our increased use of video cameras and related technologies, my concern about such laws extends beyond First Amendment issues; I am even more concerned about the potential criminalization of the basic human right to pursue a happier, healthier, safer and more dignified life through the use of new devices that might trigger the laws’ prohibitions. And even more broadly, I worry about well-intentioned yet poorly considered laws ultimately restricting our right to record, remember and share our memories.

As we argue about the right to be forgotten, or the transparency, accountability, and privacy issues surrounding the use of police body cameras, let’s not forget the more fundamental aspects of public good that would be impacted by laws that attempt to restrict recording by the public in public places. Do we not have a right to preserve our memories, visual or otherwise?

Ahmed Amer, associate professor of computer engineering at Santa Clara University, studies data storage technologies and has also worked on developing low-cost wearable computing and augmented-reality devices. He is an amateur photographer who, a decade later, remains grateful to the two police officers who acted to keep him safe and protect his right to photograph in public. Reach him @aamer.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.