Indian government requests Apple explain its stand on opposition leaders’ hacking warnings

NEW DELHI: The government is still awaiting an official response from Apple, the company that makes the iPhone, about a notice it provided to political figures in the opposition around five months ago on the suspected hacking of their devices by state-sponsored hackers.

Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in an interview that the government has questioned Apple about two things: first, if their products are secure, and second, if so, why the opposition members received the warning.

“It is my honest view that no proprietary platform would fully acknowledge the existence of vulnerabilities on their platform. Any platform has an inclination to downplay the existence of vulnerability,” he stated.

“We want to know for sure whether your phone is susceptible. That is not a completely clear-cut solution, according to Chandrasekhar.

A number of opposition figures said in October that they had gotten a notification from Apple alerting them to potential government hacking and state-sponsored attackers attempting to remotely breach their iPhones.

Congressman Mallikarjun Kharge, party leaders Shashi Tharoor, Pawan Khera, K C Venugopal, Supriya Shrinate, T S Singhdeo, and Bhupinder S Hooda were among those who got the danger notice on their iPhones.

Mahua Moitra of the Trinamool Congress, Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, and Sitaram Yechury, the General Secretary of the CPI(M).

Legislators received the following phone hacking messages from Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT: The notice also went out to Aam Aadmi Party’s Raghav Chadha, AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s aides, and Apple staff to meet with CERT-In Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi.

“We said unequivocally that day that Apple should respond to these allegations as they concern their product.

“To be sure, the government lacks the R&D (research and development) capacity to distinguish between what is and is not in iOS, and we can be sure that Apple will withhold its proprietary technology from us. So we gave them a call,” Chandrasekhar said.

He said that they are now a party to the probe because of CERT-In.

“They have provided many explanations, such as the fact that this is unrelated to the state actor, all on the same day. We persisted nonetheless, asking them to clarify what this message meant if it had nothing to do with the state actor. They have provided us with some explanation. They still do, but CERT is still looking into it,” the minister said.

Apple did not respond to an email inquiry about this.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, requests information from Apple on an attempted hack of opposition figures.
Chandrasekhar refuted claims that the government is attempting to violate people’s privacy or restrict their right to free speech.

“We make it very clear that nothing we say in laws or regulations will ever infringe upon or obstruct any of our people’ basic rights. In fact, we are in favor of it,” he said.

The minister said that the government is totally dedicated to making sure the internet is reliable and secure.

According to him, there are many who believe that free speech is a fundamental right that must be upheld. While this may be the case in the US, there are legitimate limitations on free speech under the Indian constitution.

It is restricted in that you are not allowed to say anything that might violate the law or compromise national security. The freedom of expression is a basic right.

“Fundamental right to free speech does not mean you have a fundamental right to lie, or provoke or create public order disturbances because you are inciting violence,” added the minister.

He said that although some individuals persistently accuse the government of censoring content, the administration is entirely focused on upholding citizens’ basic rights.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, shares Apple notifications with opposition lawmakers about potential hacks by “state-sponsored attackers.”
“In this fight for freedom of expression, there are good folks and evil ones. If the Indian government is the good man in this, then we are. We are entrusted to defend each and every one of our people’ basic rights, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made very clear,” the minister said.

He claimed that most claims about the government violating people’s privacy or restricting their freedom of expression are motivated by politics.

“When they have a doubt, and they can sit and discuss… they quickly get convinced that we are absolutely on the right track,” added the minister.

In response to criticism over the PIB Fact Check unit, which highlights inaccurate or misleading material about the government, Chandrasekhar said that the unit is a tool to assist platforms that are handling contested government information rather than an instance of censorship.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Information Technology and Electronics
Government hysterics about the Apple breach notice
“Platforms only need to mark anything as correct or incorrect when the fact-checking unit makes that determination. That is censorship because there is nothing in it now. However, some individuals have been described as such, particularly editors guild members and those who are seeking a cause to rally around,” Chandrasekhar said.

The Editors’ Guild of India filed a challenge to the June 2021 modifications to IT Rules 2021.

“Amendments to the IT Rules will have deeply adverse implications for press freedom in the country,” the guild has said.

According to the minister, the government would want to mediate issues between users and platforms less.

In 2021, we saw a scenario whereby any disagreement between a user and a social media site was directed against us. We want platforms to answer for the complaints of customers under the law.

“We want consumers to have the process of going to an independent regulator or to the court to have their dispute with the platform sorted not to the government,” stated the minister.