Christopher Soghoian: Your smartphone is a civil rights issue

Christopher Soghoian explains us, in a first part, the difference between Apple and Android concerning the data protection. Apple spent a lot of money to develop a system that can encrypt all data by default and so, be protecting against hackers and even governments. Android have not spent that money.

Just after, M.Soghoian recalls the distribution of the market: Apple dominates the high end of the market while Android dominates the middle and the low end of the market, because not everyone can buy an IPhone. And that is the central idea of the video: the security is only for people who are able to spend 600 $ on a phone, and not for the poor, completely vulnerable to surveillance. And that’s a problem, even a “civil right problem” according to M.Soghoian, because peoples who can protect themselves against the surveillance made by the rich and powerful, are exactly the rich and powerful.

To end his speech, M.Soghoian explain this problem is actually a democracy problem because lot of modern social movements rely on technology (Black Lives Matter, Arab Spring …) and the organizers coordinates with smartphones. The security problem become a democracy problem when the governments can stop these movements after has watch the organizer’s smartphones.