Last week, a federal judge demanded that Apple help The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to get into the iPhone 5c of one of the San Berdino shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook. Farook, with his wife, orchestrated a mass shooting at the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, last December. The phone was assigned to Farook by the agency for his job. Authorities tried to get into the phone and access the information in it, but were not succesfully able to get into the phone. The government has demanded that Apple help the FBI create a software, that has never been written before. By enforcing that software into the phone it would sidestep the securty system. This is needed, because Apple has an auto-erase function which will erase all of the phone’s data if the incorrect passcode is entered 10 times. However, if the software is developed by Apple, it puts their whole operating system in danger.
“This case is not about one phone. This case is about the future,” said Tom Cook, Apple CEO. If Apple already had the software to look into people’s phones, but at the same time not expose their a customer’s information, then they would do it for the FBI. The main reason hindering the software development is that Cook feels that the government is asking Apple to expose their customer’s privacy. Phones have a person’s entire life stored in them, ranging from financial account information, their kid’s location and information, health records, and passwords. The software not only risks a person’s privacy but also their public safety. Once the software is developed, it puts everyone in danger of their information being leaked which puts their public safety in danger as well.
Also, if Apple lobeys to the government’s ruling, then Apple is creating a backdoor solution for similar cases where Apple could be a solution. The case increases the tension between a customer’s data and publicizing that information to help authorities. Cook believes that their products and company must be encyrpyted.
Cook and President Obama will be talking about this dilemma soon, and Cook is willing to take the government’s order to supreme court if he has to.
