Apple will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for police, even with search warrants
Apple will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for
police, even with search warrants
Phil Schiller, senior vice president at Apple, speaks
about the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus on Sept. 9, 2014. (Stephen
Lam/Reuters)
By Craig Timberg September 18 at 12:20 AM
Apple said Wednesday night that it is making it
impossible for the company to turn over data from most iPhones or iPads to
police — even when they have a search warrant — taking a hard new line as tech
companies attempt to blunt allegations that they have too readily participated
in government efforts to collect user information.
The move, announced with the publication of a new privacy
policy tied to the release of Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 8,
amounts to an engineering solution to a legal quandary: Rather than comply with
binding court orders, Apple has reworked its latest encryption in a way that
prevents the company — or anyone but the device’s owner — from gaining access
to the vast troves of user data typically stored on smartphones or tablet
computers.
The key is the encryption that Apple mobile devices
automatically put in place when a user selects a passcode, making it difficult
for anyone who lacks that passcode to access the information within, including
photos, e-mails and recordings. Apple once maintained the ability to unlock
some content on devices for legally binding police requests but will no longer
do so for iOS 8, it said in the new privacy policy.
“Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your
passcode and therefore cannot access this data,” Apple said on its Web site.
“So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for
the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.”
As the new operating system becomes widely deployed over
the next several weeks, the number of iPhones and iPads that Apple is capable
of breaking into for police will steadily dwindle to the point where only
devices several years old — and incapable of running iOS 8 — can be unlocked by
Apple.
In a letter posted on the company' s
Web site, CEO Tim Cook said his company offered better privacy protection than
his rivals. (Reuters)
Apple will still have the ability — and the legal
responsibility — to turn over user data stored elsewhere, such as in its iCloud
service, which typically includes backups of photos, videos, e-mail
communications, music collections and more. Users who want to prevent all forms
of police access to their information will have to adjust settings in a way
that blocks data from flowing to iCloud.
Apple’s new privacy policy comes less than five months
after the Supreme Court ruled that police in most circumstances need a search
warrant to collect information stored on phones. Apple’s action makes that
distinction largely moot by depriving itself of the power to comply with search
warrants for the contents of many of the phones it sells.
The move is the latest in a series in which Apple has
sought to distinguish itself from competitors through more rigorous security,
especially in the aftermath of revelations about government spying made by
former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden last year.
Although the company’s security took a publicity hit with
the leak of intimate photos of celebrities from their Apple accounts in recent
weeks, the move to block police access to the latest iPhones and iPads will
thrill privacy activists and frustrate law enforcement officials, who have come
to rely on the extensive evidence often found on personal electronic devices.
“This is a great move,” said Chris topher
Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union.
“Particularly after the Snowden disclosures, Apple seems to understand that
consumers want companies to put their privacy first. However, I suspect there
are going to be a lot of unhappy law enforcement officials.”
Ronald T. Hosko, the former head of the FBI’s criminal
investigative division, called the move by Apple “problematic,” saying it will
contribute to the steady decrease of law enforcement’s ability to collect key
evidence — to solve crimes and prevent them. The agency long has publicly
worried about the “going dark” problem, in which the rising use of encryption
across a range of services has undermined government’s ability to conduct
surveillance, even when it is legally authorized.
“Our ability to act on data that does exist. . .
is critical to our success,” Hosko said. He suggested that it would take a
major event, such as a terrorist attack, to cause the pendulum to swing back
toward giving authorities access to a broad range of digital
information.
Many security experts have blamed security weaknesses in
iCloud — some of which have since been fixed — for the recent leak of celebrity
photos. Several companies also make systems designed to crack the encryption of
devices, including the iPhone and iPad. Security experts generally consider
Apple’s devices to be better protected against such attacks than some rivals’,
although people with short passcodes — of four digits, for example — are in
greater danger of what are called “brute force attacks” that relentlessly try
all possible combinations.
Adding more security can make it harder for users to
operate a mobile device. People who forget their passcodes with iOS 8 will not
be able to recover them by contacting Apple. However, most users will have the
bulk of their data automatically backed up on iCloud and would be able to restore
their phones, although not before wiping them of all user data.
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