It applies to content stored using ADP, Apple's E2EE tech. A backdoor into that would mean applying a backdoor into iOS on the phone itself, which is a much larger attack surface than anything centralised.
All of which highlights the clownish nature of these regulations. They are so easy for bad actors to circumvent (eg using their own E2EE), resulting in the ridiculous situation where the innocent get their data stolen and the very people you're targeting being completely unaffected.
Since it seems to be illegal to even reveal if one of these requests was received, it's also worrying that, by extension, it would be illegal to declare a data breach once the backdoor was inevitably exploited by another bad actor.
So, how would anybody know that a foreign government was spying on them? Nothing would stop them installing Pegasus on your phone and exfiltrating even your 'secure' data.
The stupid thing is that these laws always find a way to say that people in government are exempt from the provisions, and everybody except them is allowed to be spied on, but they are obviously going to be the first people to be targeted. Not some randomer hoarding CSAM.
This is a government that believes in thought crimes.
They will likely arrest people for having illegal memes on their phones or for texting messages to friends of which the government does not approve. If there was prequal to 1984, it would look something like this.
By "thought crimes", would you mean firing people for holding positions responsible for DEI policies which were assigned to them and which there was a legal obligation to enforce?
Because that would NEVER happen in the US, certainly no government agency would fire its own people for having following legally enacted government policy just because that policy was no longer in fashion (though still legal government policy, because Congress hadn't yet changed the law).
I really don’t like the UK governments stance on cyber security / counter-terrorism / et al either. In fact, as a UK citizen I’ve actively campaigned against a great many of their policies.
However this “thought police” and “arrested for posting memes” comment that often gets pointed on here is itself a nonsense meme.
What actually happened was people were arrested for instigating riots. This is no different to what happened in the US regarding the Capital Hill riots — people who helped organise it online were arrested too.
The UK has a long history of shitty policies invented to “protect people” but we need to be clear on what’s actually fact and what’s fiction. Otherwise you end up wasting energy protesting against things that are imaginary.
You are focusing on one set of incidents. There are lot of others not connected to any violence at all. People arrested for standing still because of what they admitted thinking and their motive for doing so. Police investigations of 'non-crime incidents'. Hate speech laws that can be very widely interpreted. Increasingly restrictive laws on public protests.
Just link to a report of an incident that you think proves your point. It’s impossible to have a sensible discussion about this issue when comments are so vague.
People have been arrested for perfectly legal anti-royalist propaganda, and threatened with arrest for such things as protesting by holding a blank sheet of paper, so I don't agree.
> In London, a barrister who held up a blank piece of paper in Parliament Square was asked for his details by Metropolitan Police officers, and told that he would be arrested under the Public Order Act if he wrote "Not My King" on the paper.
Nothing actually happened to the guy with the blank sheet of paper (or at least, if it did, that’s not reported in the article).
Certainly you can find examples of the British police overpolicing protests, and that’s something that people rightly get angry about. It’s just that there’s a huge distance between that kind of thing (which happens pretty much everywhere from time to time - do US police forces have an exemplary record of policing protests?) and the kind of wild claims you can see in this discussion that the UK has become an Orwellian police state.
Perhaps, but I am not comparing it to American forces. I'm Swedish and while I have some things to do with America, mostly indirectly, it's not my centre of reference.
It feels like the UK is in many ways leading the charge, though. The only other country that would be a contender is Australia. It was the UK for example that introduced that barbarian law that conceivably allows imprisoning people that genuinely forget the passwords to their encrypted volumes, and that was I think over a decade ago.
Lots of things are troubling. I am complaining about wild exaggerations, not saying that there is nothing to worry about or that the UK is perfect.
Unfortunately a lot of people are getting their news from Twitter, from accounts that are obsessed with painting a particular picture of the UK. Have you spent any time in the UK yourself? The impression of it that you’d get from reading HN is unrecognizable to anyone who lives here.
I don't disagree that there are wild exaggerations being made, my point was just that the UK seems further along the path than its peers.
> Have you spent any time in the UK yourself? The impression of it that you’d get from reading HN is unrecognizable to anyone who lives here.
I lived in Scotland for a while and have been to London often enough. It's it's mostly just a normal country, but things can change slowly until all of a sudden it's unavoidable. The cops showing up to peoples houses for opinions tweets is certainly frequent and concerning.
You say that but I’ve shared several examples of the same things happening in other countries like America too.
So I don’t think the UK is any further along in that regard.
There are other areas where the UK is further along though. Such as CCTV surveillance in London. There are also areas where the UK is far less Orwellian, for example our open-mindedness about abortion and gender identity.
The UK’s legal system isn’t just defined by what Musk tweets about. ;)
> You say that but I’ve shared several examples of the same things happening in other countries like America too.
You've shown some protestors getting arrested, but I don't believe you can show any equivalent of cops acting as thought police for tweets.
> for example our open-mindedness about abortion and gender identity.
Funny you say that, because there isn't so much open-mindedness as a forced viewpoint. I'm trans, FWIW, but I don't at all agree with sending cops to peoples houses because a ciswoman has doubts about accepting a transwoman completely as a woman.
I'd also say it's other western countries being compared to here, and I don't think the UK is particularly further ahead than other first world nations, aside from the US where it is very much a red/blue state issue.
> You've shown some protestors getting arrested, but I don't believe you can show any equivalent of cops acting as thought police for tweets
I have elsewhere.
> Funny you say that, because there isn't so much open-mindedness as a forced viewpoint. I'm trans, FWIW, but I don't at all agree with sending cops to peoples houses because a ciswoman has doubts about accepting a transwoman completely as a woman.
I wouldn’t say it’s a forced viewpoint here either.
Quite the opposite in fact, there’s a lot of really vocal people in the UK who publicly denounce transgender people.
> Could you relink them? I don't see anything, and I don't think you could show it is to the same extent as in the UK.
No. I’ve said my piece and I’m done.
And it isn’t even happening to extent you keep claiming. There’s been lots of evidence posted to prove that point.
> Then why do cops keep showing up for wrongthink?
They don’t.
And I know you’ll follow up with some unverifiable linked to highly disreputable sources which are several years out of date.
So let’s just close this argument off by saying you think you know better than everyone else despite not living in the UK nor reading either up-to-date nor reputable sources.
And this is precisely why this meme of the UK policing thought persists: because people form an opinion based off silly headlines and then are too singleminded to listen to the full facts.
I honestly can’t be bothered any longer on this. I’ve been actively involved in politics around precisely these kinds of issues, but of course you know better than me because it fits your own narrative about how your own country can’t also be going down the shitter.
You said this, but then continued to go out of your way to reply to another unrelated comment. Copying and pasting some links would have been less effort.
> And it isn’t even happening to extent you keep claiming. There’s been lots of evidence posted to prove that point.
Actually my llast reply showed quite the opposite. The scale is much larger, about 2,500 incidents.
> They don’t.
They do, at least 2500 times. See a recent reply for sources.
> And I know you’ll follow up with some unverifiable linked to highly disreputable sources which are several years out of date.
> So let’s just close this argument off by saying you think you know better than everyone else despite not living in the UK nor reading either up-to-date nor reputable sources.
It's a shame here to see you assuming bad faith. This reeks of tribalism, not objective argument.
The source I found was from the UK government, so I think that you preemptively dismiss that really shows who is being rational and objective and who is not.
> So let’s just close this argument off by saying you think you know better than everyone else despite not living in the UK
You keep looking for reasons to dismiss my argument fro reasons other than merit of the argument. This is telling.
I lived in the UK for years, actually, and the evidence speaks for itself, no personal experience is necessary.
> I honestly can’t be bothered any longer on this.
Maybe. You say and wrote this, yet you have a second reply you posted after this that I am about to respond to.
I won't be surprised if I end up responding yet again.
> It's a shame here to see you assuming bad faith. This reeks of tribalism, not objective argument.
Because your comments are bad faith.
And I’ve addressed all your other nonsense already.
What you’re not grasping is the cultural differences between our two police forces.
In America, the police go relatively unchecked. They buy ex-military hardware, lie in interrogations, literally kill their own innocent citizens because of their skin colour, and at no point face any repercussions. So laws in the US need to be water tight to prevent abuse — and even then, they still get flouted by those who should be upholding them.
Whereas Europe have a hell of a lot more checks and balances for our police forces. Bad cops get struck off. Good cops cannot place charges without approval from a whole other department, and thus not emotionally connected to the case. If police lie or exaggerate in those reports then they’re up for a plethora of serious charges themselves. So UK law often feels more ripe for abuse but that’s because we have stronger processes in place to protect against abuse.
Coming back to your original point, you don’t know the seriousness of the comments shared. We’ve already given examples about how online comments can have real and damaging physical consequences. Such as organising riots. People in the US have been charged for doing just the same thing. In the UK the law is called “hate speech” but that’s doesn’t mean that people are being investigated just for saying “I hate x”. Just like how there are multiple different names for different types of reasons and severity of killing someone, “hate speech” is just a term that covers a wide plethora of circumstances. And if — and when — those “hate speech” laws are abused, the police are raked over the coals for overreach.
So when you claim “whataboutism” what’s actually happening is I’m demonstrating the cultural differences that you seem oblivious too.
When you claim “thought crimes” you’re completely missing the nuance in these cases.
And when you’re claiming the police are abusing their powers you’re being, at best, deeply ironic. At worst, deeply ignorant.
In fact this whole argument and your single mindedness can be entirely summed up as “deeply ignorant”.
So why do UK citizens defend this claim against “thought police”? Because it literally isn’t happening. It’s just some bullshit concocted by right wing media (the same people who talk about rigged elections, “out of control immigration” and other made up bullshit) and Americans who want to feel better about their own shitty police force.
No, they are not. I thought you were done? Why are you still replying just to insult?
I'm sorry my view offends you, but unlike you I'm not trying to offend you, it's my honest view and I thin the evidence supports it.
If you think I'm an idiot, fine, but could you maybe just stop replying at this point instead of violating HN guidelines just to let me know? I'm down to have a civil discussion, but that clearly isn't happening at this point, and it isn't because of me.
> And I’ve addressed all your other nonsense already.
It's not nonsense, and you haven't addressed the desire not to handshake being reported, nor the 2500 or so incorrectly reported NCHIs.
---
You edited your comment to add a lot after I replied, so I'll address it here.
> What you’re not grasping is the cultural differences
between our two police forces.
You forget I lived in the UK for a fairly long time. Also, while I live in the US, I'm not from the US.
> In America, the police go relatively unchecked. They buy ex-military hardware, lie in interrogations, literally kill their own innocent citizens because of their skin colour, and at no point face any repercussions. So laws in the US need to be water tight to prevent abuse — and even then, they still get flouted by those who should be upholding them.
You're generalizing a country far more than diverse than the UK here in terms of differences in smaller government reigons and their police forces. What you've said here is not universally true for the US by any means, just for certain states.
> So UK law often feels more ripe for abuse but that’s because we have stronger processes in place to protect against abuse.
In this case, clearly not. The problem is not police abuse, it's police showing up at all because someone didn't want to shake hands or expressed a non-hateful thought on Twitter.
> Coming back to your original point, you don’t know the seriousness of the comments shared.
We do, because the people that get harassed by the cops report them.
> We’ve already given examples about how online comments can have real and damaging physical consequences.
Yes, they can, but that tends to be mobs or cyber bulling, outright insults. The cases that have been reported are not anything like that. If anything, it's UK cops being used, manipulated and unwittingly used as weapons, which isn't a much better look than if they are being malicious.
> Such as organising riots. People in the US have been charged for doing just the same thing.
That doesn't come under hate speech, but some other laws. Plenty of riots have nothing to do with hate speech, and the issue isn't the same. There may be crossover sometimes, but not necessarily.
Therefore, people being arrested in the US for organizing riots is entirely irrelevant to what we are discussing.
> In the UK the law is called “hate speech” but that’s doesn’t mean that people are being investigated just for saying “I hate x”.
Yes, it does, and that's exactly the problem! There was literally an article in the Telegraph of that exact thing happening, twice!
How is this not blatant denial on your part?
> So when you claim “whataboutism” what’s actually happening is I’m demonstrating the cultural differences that you seem oblivious too.
How incredibly disingenuous.
You mention cops killing black people, which has nothing to do with cultural differences unless you consider racism and lack of training in rural areas in red states cultural differences.
No, cultural differences is in no way a justification for your blatant whataboutism. A cop killing an unarmed black man in the US has NOTHING to do with cops showing up at peoples doors in the UK for sharing non hate thoughts online, holding up a blank piece of paper or refusing to shake hands. Honestly it's a really crappy thing to try and reduce the killing of an innocent black man to any of those things just to try and save your crummy argument.
> When you claim “thought crimes” you’re completely missing the nuance in these cases.
No, what's happening here is you are giving the benefit of doubt to your government even when there are blatant examples that don't warrant it. What is the nuance for the examples in the Telegraph article that would defend against the notion they were thought crimes?
> And when you’re claiming the police are abusing their powers you’re being, at best, deeply ironic. At worst, deeply ignorant.
More insults. No, I'm being honest and objective, while you're bending over backwards to be tribalistic like the worst examples of Americans, and then because you can't actually support your point and I'm not conceding, resorting to insults and personal attacks.
You have no argument, and your attempts to defend your point trying to justify Orwellian actions in the UK by accusing me of cultural misunderstandings (which is funny since I bet I've spent more time in the UK than you've spent in the US) and and likening the UK incidents to the unarmed shooting of a black man are desperate and easily dismissed.
> In fact this whole argument and your single mindedness can be entirely summed up as “deeply ignorant”.
NO, you're simply being deeply arrogant and disingenuous. Your examples you've provided don't map to the UK incidents, and when pressed you outwardly make excused to not provide them when asked, despite writing an essay to make the ridiculous argument you did above.
You keep accusing me of being ignorant, yet I've lived in the UK for about 5 years, how long did you spend in the US? And except the evidence supports my claims, while you need to reply on interpretations, speculation and bs claims of cultural misunderstandings.
> So why do UK citizens defend this claim against “thought police”? Because it literally isn’t happening.
Some do, the patriots, others understand the issue and are out protesting against it fighting to keep or regain freedoms. That clearly isn't you though. Why fight for an issue when you can deny it and whatbaoutism any attempt to point it out?
Are you not wildly exaggerating when you suggest that the ‘cops’ frequently show up at people’s houses based on things that they’ve tweeted? There aren’t even enough police officers in the UK for this to be feasible if they wanted to do it.
I didn't mean to imply that it's happening any time anyone tweet something, but there have been an alarming number of cases of cops showing up at peoples houses for tweets they've made. A far greater number than anything happening in other western countries, which doesn't even have anything close to compare it to.
Just to be clear, even 20 times is significant here, I think the actual number is much higher, but even a low number as 20 is concerning when the tweets don't promote violence, terrorism, CSASM or anything illegal.
What exactly is it that you are saying has happened 20 times? Described in objective terms, not using vague and emotive language like “thought police”, etc etc.
It’s still not clear where you’re getting the number 20 from or which incidents you’re talking about. But it sounds like these are cases of people being questioned by police and then…not getting arrested because they weren’t committing a crime. I’m not sure what is supposed to be concerning about that in the abstract. Maybe there’s something concerning about the specific incidents, but you don’t seem inclined to give any details about them.
> But it sounds like these are cases of people being questioned by police and then…not getting arrested because they weren’t committing a crime.
The problem is cops showing up at all for people sharing an opinion. The tweets were visible at cop HQ. Sending cops out reads like intimidation which is something cops do in authoritarian societies.
Were you not aware of the subsequent court judgment in favor of the guy in the 2019 article? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-59727118.... No country can prevent all police officers from doing stupid things at all times, but it’s painting a very one-sided picture to leave out this important context.
Incidentally, the Daily Mail is not a news source.
> Were you not aware of the subsequent court judgment in favor of the guy in the 2019 article?
It. Doesn't. matter. The article linked is but one incident. There's been plenty others, some involving public figures. Cops are literally acting like thought police and no, that isn't hyperbole.
The problem that this occurs in the UK far more widespread than it does. I get you want to defend your country but I think you're taking it a bit far here. Denying the issues out of a sense of patriotism is how they worsen.
> Incidentally, the Daily Mail is not a news source.
As I said, the fact that it was a DM article is irrelevant here.
There have been some instances of people being inappropriately contacted by the police over things they wrote online. I think that this has largely stopped following the court judgment that I mention downthread. I think there's broad agreement here on what the police should and shouldn't be doing. The issue is whether it's actually accurate to paint a picture of the UK as a country where the police regularly harass people about their online postings. If people in the UK strike you as unduly unconcerned, consider the possibility that it's because this isn't actually happening to anything like the extent that some people on Twitter would like you to believe that it does.
By the way, you seem to be using 'the government' in a very broad 90s internet libertarian sense. The police in the UK are operationally independent of the government of the day. As Wikipedia explains:
> Police officers [in the UK] hold office and are not employees. Each officer is an independent legal official and not an "agent of the police force, police authority or government". This allows the police their unique status and notionally provides the citizens of the UK a protection from any government that might wish unlawfully to use the police as an instrument against them.
That’s not really the same as what’s being discussed though it’s still troubling.
Thankfully common sense prevailed and those people weren’t convicted. meanwhile in other “less Orwellian” counties people are getting charged for similar actions:
> That’s not really the same as what’s being discussed though it’s still troubling.
GP mentioned anti-royalist protester arrests and threats of arrest, you asked for a citation, I provided a link to a BBC article discussing those. How is it not "what's being discussed"? (At least in the context of this subthread.)
Fair point. But as I said, there was more to that story. And under relatively similar circumstances people are charged for protesting under similar laws in other countries too. Including ones that have freedom of speech written directly into their constitution.
So while I don’t agree with the UK arrests, it doesn’t prove that the UK is any more Orwellian than any other country.
> Thankfully common sense prevailed and those people weren’t convicted. meanwhile in other “less Orwellian” counties people are getting charged for similar actions:
>However this “thought police” and “arrested for posting memes” comment that often gets pointed on here is itself a nonsense meme.
Are you for real? These accusations are not merely memes.
While I don't endorse terrible people, it is note worth sometimes awful people are the target of even more awful laws. For example, you can do research into a person named "Adam Smith-Connor" who was literally convicted for standing in public while introspectively praying silently. The conduct of standing while appearing to pray was deemed as a form of illegal protest too near an abortion clinic. The same exact thing happened to another person "Isabel Vaughan-Spruce" who was not convicted.
There are also well documented incidents in the UK involving the prosecution of people making remarks online, which could arguably cross into thought-crime territory. I'll leave it to you to actually research these incidence, Google is your friend.
As usual in these HN threads on the UK, there’s a reasonable point that could be made about whether or not this restriction correctly balances the right to free speech against women’s right to access healthcare. But instead we see a lot of wildly exaggerated talk about “thought crimes”, etc. etc.
> For example, you can do research into a person named "Adam Smith-Connor" who was literally convicted for standing in public while introspectively praying silently. The conduct of standing while appearing to pray was deemed as a form of illegal protest too near an abortion clinic.
Those people are not trying to genuinely prey, but to intimidate women considering or wanting to get an abortion.
> There are also well documented incidents in the UK involving the prosecution of people making remarks online, which could arguably cross into thought-crime territory.
>However this “thought police” and “arrested for posting memes” comment that often gets pointed on here is itself a nonsense meme.
>What actually happened was people were arrested for instigating riots. This is no different to what happened in the US regarding the Capital Hill riots — people who helped organise it online were arrested too.
One of the "instigators" was sent to prison for tweeting "every man and his dog should smash [the] f** out of Britannia hotel (in Leeds)". While I agree such tweet might be illegal under US law (it plausibly meets the "imminent lawless action" standard), it's a stretch to equate that to "organise [the Capital Hill riots] online" (whatever that means). A tweet by a nobody who got 6 likes isn't "organising". It's shitposting.
Did you actually read that article. In there it even stated there was a pattern of behaviour and that his comments on Facebook had been shared with thousands and directly resulted criminal damage. Not only that, that his comments were intended to cause criminal damage and result in physical attacks against immigrants.
What you’ve done is selectively quoted a small subset of portions from that article to misrepresent the full trial.
Which is exactly why I had to write my comment defending the UK government earlier. Believe me, I really don’t want to defend the government.
The UK government get a lot wrong when it comes to legislation regarding technology. In fact they get nearly everything wrong and I’ve frequently had to have words my MPs about it (not that that’s done any good). But they categorically do not lock people up just for shitposting. At best that’s just an exaggeration. At worst it’s an out right misrepresentation of the facts.
>Did you actually read that article. In there it even stated there was a pattern of behaviour and that his comments on Facebook had been shared with thousands
Are you talking about this?
"The initial post received six likes. However, it was sent to your 1,500 Facebook friends and, because of your lack of privacy settings, will have been forwarded to friends of your friends."
"shared" is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, and likely used in a misleading way. Given how facebook uses algorithmic timelines, and the wording (the judge was seemingly unwilling to use a stronger word like "seen" or "read"), my guess is that was the upper bound of people who could have seen his post, not how many people actually seen it. It certainly doesn't mean 1,500 people actually clicked the shared button next to his post (or otherwise make a conscious effort to disseminate the post), as "his comments on Facebook had been shared with thousands" implies.
> and directly resulted criminal damage.
Is there any evidence that people who has committed crimes even seen his post? Or are you simply claiming that because he made such tweets, such tweets called for riots, and riots happened, that those tweets "directly resulted criminal damage"?
>Not only that, that his comments were intended to cause criminal damage and result in physical attacks against immigrants.
This doesn't contradict my prior comment, which specifically admits his behavior is illegal under even US law. My complaint was with the characterization that his tweets counts as "organising".
And let’s not forget that the Capital Hill riots were just a small few who took things out of hand - like with this guy. So it doesn’t need to be thousands to be a criminal offence.
The guy in question pled guilty too. So he clearly admits responsibility for the attack on the hotel. And that in itself should indicate that there’s more to this story than just “shitposting” on Facebook.
The problem here is folks like Elon Musk are focusing on the “freedom of speech” aspect (and if course he is, he’s got a vested self interest to) and given Elons media reach, this story gets skewed into a different debate.
The ironic thing is the biggest voices arguing that the UK is Orwellian don’t even realise that arrests have been happening in their own county for the same things and for much longer than in the UK.
And that’s my biggest complaint about this discussion on HN: The UK is singled out when this is happening in every country. And the cases people refer to in the UK are being distorted to sound like it’s harmless memes when the actual comments are far from what any sane person would call “shitposting”.
2. Given the issues I outlined above with the word "shared", can you clarify what exactly is meant by that? Are we talking about the act of him posting to a group chat, or that other people made an conscious effort to disseminate his post?
This doesn't provide any information to refute the points I presented in my prior comment.
>The guy in question pled guilty too. So he clearly admits responsibility for the attack on the hotel.
Don't confuse pleading with guilt. He faced years/decades in prison, along with any fines/legal bills. Pleading out could be a rational choice even if he was innocent.
>And that in itself should indicate that there’s more to this story than just “shitposting” on Facebook.
This is circular reasoning. If the thing being discussed was whether prosecutors were overzealous in prosecuting such tweets, you can't use the fact that he was prosecuted in arguing that arguing prosecutors weren't overzealous.
>The ironic thing is the biggest voices arguing that the UK is Orwellian don’t even realise that arrests have been happening in their own county for the same things and for much longer than in the UK.
I'm not sure why you're still trying to argue such acts are criminal, when a few comments ago I specifically agreed with the possibility that such acts are criminal.
>[...] I agree such tweet might be illegal under US law (it plausibly meets the "imminent lawless action" standard) [...]
It's not that bad. I think the demanding a backdoor from Apple is over the top / stupid. But I haven't heard mention of thought crimes yet (brit here).
I'm entirely against what the UK government wants, however I would say:
Although you're right that tech people would still be able to choose secure encrypted options, the fact is that the majority of criminals by pure numbers are not very sophisticated - so while this sort of backdoor obviously wouldn't be a guarantee that every criminal conversation could be snooped on, it would work on the 90-99% (I'd guess towards 99) who aren't both cautious enough to try to be secure and tech savvy enough to make the right choices.
(But it's still a terrible idea, both for the sake of general privacy principles, and for the risk that current or future governments or personnel will abuse the access, and for the risk that criminals outside government will be able to take advantage of the same backdoor.)
The idea that criminals are not sophisticated is a weak excuse for this system.
Once the government starts mining data from iPhones, criminals will quickly adapt while every law-abiding citizen gets caught in the crossfire. It opens the door for abuse: officials could easily spy on their partners, dig up dirt on rivals, or target those they dislike without breaking any laws. Meanwhile, cybercriminals will have an easy target since every phone comes with this built-in vulnerability.
This system is likely to snag small-time offenders, not the real masterminds behind organized crime. This isn’t a smart solution for crime. It just sacrifices our privacy for a few token arrests.
Criminals don't need to be all sophisticated anyway. They just need to know how to reach one of the sophisticated criminals and pay them to extract whatever they need.
Incidentally, as a non US and non UKer, my data with the major tech firms has no protection anyway. Welcome to the club, US citizens :)
Most GSW victims are killed by one or two bullets, not hundreds of them.
You don't need a "vast majority" of criminals to break down a system and exfiltrate data when just a single, possibly state-backed, criminal operation can break your system down and do the job.
SMS is already known to be insecure and easily snooped on with a warrant, and has been used by police around the world in many cases, yet a surprisingly high number of criminals still use it.
The majority of criminals have no idea that their their iMessage encryption keys and iMessages are synced into the cloud and available to law enforcement with a warrant. No need to break devices security, no need for back doors.
There are already replies with sound arguments against the ideology that 90 of criminals arnt that sophisticated.
Secondly, I will also point out that criminals in general watch whats happening to other criminals. If people start going to jail because there mobile communications are being targeted, others will catch on and stop using mobile tech altogether for criminal activities.. People copy what works successfully, you don't need to be smart to do that. So yeah this argument is complete bullshit.
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It applies to content stored using ADP, Apple's E2EE tech. A backdoor into that would mean applying a backdoor into iOS on the phone itself, which is a much larger attack surface than anything centralised.
All of which highlights the clownish nature of these regulations. They are so easy for bad actors to circumvent (eg using their own E2EE), resulting in the ridiculous situation where the innocent get their data stolen and the very people you're targeting being completely unaffected.