"Following successful small-scale tests over the past months, the option for WhatsApp users to chat with users of messaging apps BirdyChat and Haiket directly via third-party chats will soon be rolling out across Europe," Meta wrote in a blog post. "This marks a significant milestone in Meta's compliance with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) interoperability requirements."
Caroline Wilson Palow, legal director of the campaign group Privacy International, said the new order might be "just as big a threat to worldwide security and privacy" as the old one. She said: "If Apple breaks end-to-end encryption for the UK, it breaks it for everyone. The resulting vulnerability can be exploited by hostile states, criminals, and other bad actors the world over."
If true, this new order is not 'less worse' than the first. That's because, as we have been saying all along, Apple cannot undermine end-to-end encryption of iCloud services only for the UK when those services are used worldwide. If Apple breaks end-to-end encryption for the UK, it breaks it for everyone. The resulting vulnerability can be exploited by hostile states, criminals and other bad actors the world over.
The Tribunal plans a seven-day public hearing to address Apple's and PI's challenges regarding the UK order impacting iCloud's security, based on assumed facts.