The Modi government has allegedly instructed Apple to tone down recent warnings issued to Indian opposition figures about targeted state-backed hacking attempts on iPhones.
As per a Washington Post report, unnamed government officials held talks with Apple’s India representatives asking the company to mitigate the political fallout from the controversial cyber alerts.
In October, several vocal opponents of the ruling BJP claimed to receive threat notification pop-ups on their Apple devices. The message read – “Apple believes you are being targeted by state-sponsored attackers.”
Although Apple refrained from explicitly blaming any agency, the Indian opposition accused the Modi dispensation of trying to snoop on their phone data and compromising privacy.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi even alleged the snooping attempts were triggered as soon as anyone touched upon industrialist Gautam Adani, implying misuse of agencies against critics of the government and its capitalist allies.
The Post report now claims Indian authorities summoned an Apple security expert from overseas to New Delhi for a meeting where they allegedly “coerced” him to offer alternative justifications for the cyber warnings.
The report suggests the government wants to control damage from the global attention the iPhone hack alerts have garnered amidst debates over privacy, surveillance, and abuse of state power.
By instructing the iPhone maker to go soft on its warnings, the authorities seemingly want to dilute the controversy to ensure minimum political blowback.
The revelations, if proven accurate, will further dent the Modi regime’s claims about safeguarding citizens’ data privacy and not engaging in vindictive strong-arm tactics against the opposition.
For Apple, accused by some of capitulating to Indian pressure in the past, the incident represents another ethical dilemma in balancing business interests with principles of free speech and user rights.
