Apple has removed these ICE tracking apps. Developers don’t give up

Legal experts spoke with WIRED saying that the ICE surveillance and authentication apps that Apple removed from its App Store are clear examples of speech protected under the First Amendment. “These apps spread constitutionally protected speech,” says David Green, the institute’s director of civil liberties. “They’re spreading truthful information about matters of public interest that people got just by watching public events.” Electronic Frontier Foundation.

This hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from attacking the developers behind these ICE-related apps. When the ICEBlock app first rose to number one in Apple’s App Store in April, the Trump administration responded by threatening to sue the developer. “We’re looking at it,” Bondi said He said On Fox News from ICEBlock’s Aaron. “He better watch out.”

Neither the White House nor Immigration and Customs Enforcement immediately responded to requests for comment.

Digital rights researchers say the situation illustrates the dangers that occur when major platforms and communication channels come under central control, whether directly by governments or by other powerful entities such as Big Tech companies. Regardless of what is officially available through the Google Play Store, Android users can download the apps of their choice. But Apple’s ecosystem has always been a walled garden, an approach the company has long touted for its security advantages, including the ability to further vet malicious apps.

For many years, a group of researchers and enthusiasts have tried to do just that Create “jailbreaks” For iPhones to hack their own devices as a way to get around Apple’s closed ecosystem. But recently, jailbreaking has become less common. This is partly a result Advances in iPhone securitybut it is partly related to the trend in recent years of attackers exploiting complex strings of vulnerabilities that could be used to jailbreak malware instead, particularly Mercenary spyware.

“The kind of incentive for a closed ecosystem has waned as Apple has added capabilities that previously required jailbreaking — like wallpapers, tethering, better notifications, and Private Mode in Safari,” says Will Strafach, an iOS security researcher and longtime jailbreaker. “But this situation with ICE apps highlights the problem of Apple being the arbiter and the only point of failure.”

Stanford’s Pfefferkorn warns that although US tech companies are not subject to state control, in her view they have become “happy handmaidens” when it comes to “suppressing freedom of expression and dissent.”

“It’s particularly disappointing,” says Pfefferkorn, “coming from the company that brought us the ‘Think Different’ ad campaign, which invoked MLK, Gandhi, and Muhammad Ali — none of whom are likely to be big fans of ICE today.”