Microsoft Requires Chinese-Based Workers To Use iPhones
According to documents reviewed by Bloomberg, Microsoft dispatched a memo announcing that its Chinese-based employees will be required to use iPhones for work. The decision was made because China blocks access to Google Play, the native app store on Android devices. The App Store is the only source from which Microsoft employees can download necessary security-related apps.
The alternative app stores available to Chinese Android users are also fundamentally problematic. “Android owners on the China mainland have instead had to use app platforms run by Huawei or Xiaomi,” AppleInsider notes. This should be worrisome to anyone who thinks seriously about cybersecurity.
Thus far, American users have enjoyed access to safe, secure, and trusted app stores run by Apple and Google. To see the alternative, they need only look to China (where the specter of state control looms over all digital infrastructure) or to Europe (where lawmakers have enacted invasive tech regulations, such as sideloading mandates, breaking down essential consumer protections).
Certainly, the threats posed by Chinese authoritarianism and European digital technocracy are not equivalent. But each region’s policies demonstrate the grave threats to consumers that necessarily follow attempts to excise platforms’ existing privacy- and cybersecurity-protective features.
Despite the many failures of European tech policy, many American lawmakers are determined to scapegoat Big Tech and to institute regulations that resemble Europe’s. Their grievances and biases blind them to the hard evidence that show such policies to be dangerous. For example, European officials approached Apple to ask the company to exempt government devices from a recently enacted sideloading mandate. They knew the inherent risks of their policies and wanted to shield themselves from the necessary consequences. European consumers have no such luxury of protection.
Europe’s officials chose robust cybersecurity for the government but didn’t give the ordinary European consumer the same choice. In a similar way, all congressional staff on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., are also issued iPhones, which are more secure by design than Android devices. American lawmakers targeting Apple’s so-called “walled garden” should pause to consider this policy.
In the modern age, cybersecurity risks are constantly increasing – for consumers, businesses, and governments. New technologies and strategies – including artificial intelligence – are revolutionizing the sector. Policymakers must do everything possible to strengthen cybersecurity for all and to avoid weakening the already available protections that keep users safe.
Published on July 23, 2024