BlackBerry CEO “Disturbed” By Apple’s Encryption, User Privacy Efforts

We already know that BlackBerry and Apple have a different approach to security, but BlackBerry CEO couldn’t help it and called out Apple during the company’s Security Summit that kicked off yesterday in New York.

Apple commitment privacy

BlackBerry CEO John Chen called Apple’s approach to encryption and commitment to user privacy “disturbing”, as reported by the Inquirer.

“One of our competitors, we call it ‘the other fruit company’, has an attitude that it doesn’t matter how much it might hurt society, they’re not going to help,” he said.

“I found that disturbing as a citizen. I think BlackBerry, like any company, should have a basic civil responsibility. If the world is in danger, we should be able to help out.”

The comment comes from the CEO of a company that says they “did the right thing” when they gave BBM access to the Canadian police. This actually means the cops were able to intercept more than 1 million BBM messages, by having access to the “global encryption key” used by BlackBerry to encrypt BBM messages. This key is loaded into every handset during manufacturing.

Apple has been collaborating with law enforcement agencies, but it did say no when the FBI wanted to force the company to create a software that would create a backdoor to iOS.

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