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In recent weeks, an Apple representative and a lobbyist from CompTIA, a commercial organization representing major technology companies, have privately met California lawmakers to encourage them to abolish legislation that would make it easier to repair their electronic devices by consumers. learned.
According to two sources at the California State Assembly, lobbyists have met with members of the Committee on the Protection of Privacy and Consumers, which is scheduled to hold a hearing on the bill Tuesday after midday. Lobbyists brought an iPhone to meetings and showed lawmakers and their legislative assistants the internal components of the phone. Lobbyists said that if they were badly disassembled, consumers who were trying to repair their own iPhone could get hurt by puncturing the lithium-ion battery, sources said, which Motherboard has not named because & # 39; They were not allowed to talk to the media.
The argument is similar to that publicly advanced by Apple CEO Lisa Jackson in 2017 at TechCrunch Disrupt, where she stated that the iPhone is "too complex" for normal people to repair it .
In the past, Apple had lobbied against the so-called right-to-repair legislation, which would require Apple and other electronics companies to sell repair parts and tools and make available to the larger company. public information on diagnosis and repair. In 2017, documents from the state of New York showed that the company had hired a lobbyist to lobby against the problem, and an Apple lobbyist in Nebraska told a legislator that the fact to charge the right to repair would turn the state into a "mecca for bad actors, criminals and hackers." Following media coverage of Apple's lobbying in these two states, the company has been much quieter. Rather than lobbying on its own behalf, the company relied on CompTIA, an organization funded by technology companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Samsung, to testify against legislation at hearings and to meet legislators.
In-person meetings in California took place a few weeks after CompTIA and 18 other professional organizations associated with leading technology companies, including CTIA and the Entertainment Software Association, sent letters of opposition to Members of the Data Protection and Privacy Committee of the Assembly. A copy of the letter, addressed to the chairman of the committee, Ed Chau and obtained by the motherboard, urges the president not to go ahead with this legislation. CTIA represents wireless carriers, including Verizon, AT & T, and T-Mobile, while the Entertainment Software Association represents Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and other video game manufacturers.
"With access to exclusive guides and tools, hackers can more easily bypass security protections, harming not only the owner of the product, but all those who share their network," she says. obtained letter from Motherboard. "When an electronic product breaks down, consumers have various repair options, including the use of an OEM. [original equipment manufacturer] authorized repair network. "
The experts, however, say that Apple's and CompTIA's warnings are largely exaggerated. People without special training regularly replace cracked batteries or screens on their iPhone and there are thousands of small, independent repair companies that regularly repair iPhones without incident. The problem is that many of these companies operate in a gray area because they are forced to buy spare parts from third parties in Shenzhen, China because Apple does not sell them to independent companies unless & ### 39, they are not part of the "Apple Authorized Service Provider". Program ", which limits the types of repairs they are allowed to perform and requires companies to pay fees to Apple for membership.
"It is quite absurd to suggest that spare parts and manuals pose security and safety concerns," said Nathan Proctor, director of the consumer rights campaign US PIRG on the Right to Know. repair, during a phone call. "We know that millions of people around the country do it themselves. Millions of people entrust their devices to independent technicians. "
The CompTIA letter is identical to the letters sent to lawmakers in other states who are considering very different bills and looks a lot like a letter sent last year by the organization. The California bill, in particular, is more closely adapted than the legislation introduced in 19 other states of the country. Rather than requiring manufacturers to publish diagnostic software that may be required to repair a device, they are only required to sell "functional parts on fair and reasonable terms" and provide sufficient maintenance documentation, at no cost "to the public.
"Manufacturers have the instinctive reaction to oppose rather than say what the bill actually says"
"I saw the coalition letter in opposition to [the bill] and it was disappointing to say the least. Not the fact that there was an opposition, but rather a copy, word for word, of the letter of opposition to my bill last year, "said Susan Talamantes-Eggman, the sponsor of the project, in an email. .
"Although their intentions are similar, we have worked very hard over the past year to address many of the concerns raised by the opposition, with a much smaller range of products and requirements, but they seem to be responding strongly. . speaking about what the bill actually says, "she added. "All [the bill] The information and parts that manufacturers have been required to provide in California for decades must also be made available to regulated independent repair shops and individual owners. "
Although Apple has not talked much about repairs in recent months and in recent years, Motherboard announced in March that Apple had quietly contacted independent repair companies with a new program called "Repair Parts". "Apple origin", which would allow a limited number of companies to buy repairs. Apple parts with few restrictions. The slides associated with the program, obtained by Motherboard, suggest that Apple could comply with the law on the right to repair without too much burden.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A representative of CompTIA said to the motherboard in an email that he "[does not] have additional information to provide at the moment. "
On Tuesday, the Right to Repair Promoters has launched a new organization called Securepairs.org, created by Paul Roberts of SecurityLedger.com, a long-time security news website. The organization announced Tuesday that a handful of notable independent security researchers, including cryptographer Bruce Schneier, ACLU's Jon Callas and hacker Joe Grand (formerly Kingpin) believed that the legislation on the right to repair posed no security problem. The group aims to fight the claims of CompTIA and other lobbyists who fight against the right to repair the legislation.
"Device security is not tied to diagnostics or maintenance manuals, they are tied to poor code with vulnerabilities, low authentication, devices deployed by default to be vulnerable," Roberts told Motherboard. "We all know there is no debate. The security of connected devices has nothing to do with the repair. "
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