The right to Privacy: Apple verses the FBI

10th March 2016

You may have heard, last year, that the United States FBI was suing Apple over access to the iPhone 5C of a shooter who (along with his wife) attacked and killed 14 people in a shooting spree last December, in San Bernardino, California. The Fed and tech’ giant had been embroiled in a severe legal battle, with Apple holding firm on their ground over concerns for privacy of the wider population should a precedent be set. US President Donald Trump even waged in encouraging citizens to boycott Apple at the height of the controversy.

However, after law enforcement gained access to the shooter’s device (suspected with the help of an Israeli firm), the legal case has been dropped. But concerns still exist over the ethical questions raised by the case, as technology firms and law authorities debate over the right to privacy verses data access.

A judge in the case had originally ordered Apple to help unlock the phone by providing ‘reasonable technical assistance’, to which Apple promptly declined with CEO Tim Cook calling the order “chilling”. He went on to explain that doing so would involve rewriting software so that the automatic wiping of the device after 10 incorrect password attempts is disabled, and was akin to creating ‘a master key’ which would be capable of opening ‘hundreds of millions of locks’; adding that if the FBI can unlock this one iPhone, then they already have the capability to unlock more.

The FBI claimed the request was a one-off and so the case went to court making history as one of the high profile court cases over privacy, data and encryption between a technology company and government authorities, arguing that such encryption technology makes it much harder for them to investigate and solve crimes. This is rebuffed of course by tech companies, collectively stating that encryption is essential to protect and preserve users personal data.

Once the shooter’s phone was seemingly broken into the case was dropped without any further comment or clarification from the US government but Apple did say in a statement that it “will continue to help law enforcement with their investigations… and will continue to increase the security of our products”.

Whilst this is probably not the end of the privacy/encryption saga, it seems clear that Apple at least is intent on protecting the data and privacy of its users, at any cost.

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