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Apple chief Tim Cook has said the company will resist a “chilling” order from the US government to break the encryption on its iPhones so they can access more details on a terror suspect.
A US judge has ordered Apple to help the US authorities break into the iPhone of one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack, which took place in December last year. By default, Apple encrypts large parts of the software on the iPhone to protect user privacy.
The ruling is the first of its kind in the global debate over privacy versus national security, one that has intensified in the wake of terror attacks in Paris and elsewhere, but Cook took the unusual step of posting a strongly worded open letter to the Apple website, calling the demand “chilling” and saying Apple will fight the ruling.
Cook says that while Apple was “shocked and outraged” by the shootings in San Bernardino, California, in which 14 people died, being asked to build a backdoor to get around built-in security features on the phone of one of the shooters would be a threat to everyone’s privacy.
“In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession,” he said.
“The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.”
Apple themselves do not have access to iPhone data, with Cook pointing out in the letter that Apple sees the contents of iPhones as “none of our business”.
However, as technology has reached the mainstream, and smartphones have reached many hands, criminals and terrorists have become increasingly notable for their use of such devices to communicate, plan attacks and even recruit new followers.
The so-called Islamic State militant group is known to use Twitter broadly as a propaganda tool, while the Paris attacks were reportedly planned using messaging services such as WhatsApp, where communications are encrypted and therefore not visible to authorities monitoring them in the same way phone calls or text messages are. Governments are now turning their attentions to the technology companies in a bid to change this.
Cook added that while the US authorities are suggesting that the software would only be used on the San Bernardino case, there was no guarantee of this or any way to police it, and it could easily be used again on any iPhone.
“The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.
“The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers — including tens of millions of American citizens — from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals. The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe.”
The order was labelled a “dangerous precedent” by Apple, and Cook confirmed that the company plans to fight it.
“Opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the US government,” he said.
“We are challenging the FBI’s demands with the deepest respect for American democracy and a love of our country. We believe it would be in the best interest of everyone to step back and consider the implications.
“While we believe the FBI’s intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. And ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.”
The letter is the strongest response yet from Apple, which has been involved in a back-and-forth debate with authorities for some months over data privacy and their own encrypted systems – a set-up other tech giants including Google also have in place by default.
