Russia: "They can do anything" - Snowden on data scanning by private companies

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Mandatory credit to New Knowledge educational marathon

Former US intelligence officer Edward Snowden gave an interview as part of the New Knowledge educational marathon in Moscow on Thursday.

Snowden warned smartphone owners that their personal data is not protected. At the same time, according to him, the danger comes from the companies themselves, who are ready to sell information about the owners to some government structures.

He called for the creation of an industry that will increase the security of confidential information. According to Snowden, this is especially important in the modern world as people perceive their smartphones ‘as an extension of ourselves, an extension of our organisms.’

SOT, Edward Snowden, former US Intelligence officer: “Once a company, once Apple, breaks this barrier between their services and your phone, and now they start scanning on your phone, and they can scan for anything. They can scan for political criticism; they can scan for financial records; they can scan for really anything. And even if you trust Apple and you think Apple wouldn’t do that, once Apple has established a precedent, ones they’d done for the first time this type of scanning, they lose the ability to say that they would never use it. It’s no longer a question. Once it is proven possible, it’s no longer a question for Apple; it’s a question for governments; it’s a question for lawmakers. They can use it in anyway they want. So, I will answer the same question, but I will try doing this in short. What’s really different in the context of Apple’s new iPhone scanning system? Is that instead of private companies scan their files in the cloud in their systems, now they do it on your phone? This has caused a lot of concern from people worldwide, even though, for now, the system is rolling out in the United States. The reasons for this are: once Apple proves that it is possible for them to scan for some kind of forbidden content – whether it’s illegal content, it does not really matter. Once they say that you can have this file on your phone and we developed a system to detect it. They can’t decide in future what kind of files would be searched for, it’s no longer a company’s question, it’s a government’s question. So I have to ask you something: Can Apple say no to the US government, can they say no to the Russian government, can they say no to the Chinese government, can they say no to the German government, the French government, or the British government? And of course, the answer is no, no if they want to keep selling their products in these countries. That is dangerous.”

SOT, Edward Snowden, former US Intelligence officer: “And now there are private companies, that have no business besides creating hacking methods to these phones, and they sell the hacking methods to governments around the world, and including some very bad governments, that we would agree would having these abilities. And we think of the phone as an extension of ourselves, an extension of our body, and then you think that now there is an open market for the people to take over these phones. It is like there is a business in finding ways to corrupt people’s bodies. It’s like paying someone ten million dollars, and they will give you the ability to control someone’s arm and using it against you. And that’s a problem. We need to have devices that are more secure, not less secure. The idea that we are creating an industry that develops insecurity, or anti-security, as opposed to improving security, is very problematic.” *MULTIPLE SHOTS AT SOURCE*

SOT, Edward Snowden, former US Intelligence officer: “When I wrote ‘A Hell Of Our Own Making,’ I was thinking about really tragic consequences of two decades of war. And, we are now celebrating as a victory the fact that we got bin Laden. But bin Laden was a criminal. You take them to court, show the evidence and convict them. And then you punish them. That is how justice works as we traditionally understand it. And we had the chance to arrest bin Laden, to capture bin Laden, but we chose not to. Instead, we simply shot him. And then you have to ask yourself: does justice grows out of the barrel of a gun?”

SOT, Edward Snowden, former US Intelligence officer: “Of course, actually, I’ll never speak Russian as well as someone born here, but maybe one day my son will teach me Russian.”

SOT, Edward Snowden, former US Intelligence officer: “Thank you to everyone for listening, and I would say good luck to all students in their studies. (Russian) Have good studies.”

#Snowden #Surveillance #Russia

Video ID: 20210902-026

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