FBI could force us to turn on iPhone cameras and microphones, says Apple
FBI could force us to turn on iPhone cameras and
microphones, says Apple
Eddy Cue warns precedent set by San Bernardino case could
lead to company being forced to turn users’ smartphones into surveillance
devices
By Samuel Gibbs
Thursday 10 March 2016 09.33 EST Last modified on
Thursday 10 March 2016 12.15 EST
If the FBI wins in its case against Apple to help it
unlock the San Bernardino killer’s iPhone 5C, it won’t be long before the
government forces Apple to turn on users’ iPhone cameras and microphones to spy
on them, according to the company’s head of services Eddy Cue.
The FBI has demanded that Apple creates custom software
that bypasses certain security features of the company’s iOS to allow law
enforcement to brute force the passcode of the gunman’s iPhone 5C.
But according to Apple, making the modifications
necessary in this case would set a dangerous precedent in offering backdoors
into users’ smartphones.
Cue said to Univision: “Someday they will want [Apple] to
turn on [a user’s] camera or microphone. We can’t do that now, but what if
we’re forced to do that?
“Where will this stop? In a divorce case? In an
immigration case? In a tax case? Some day, someone will be able to turn on a
phone’s microphone. That should not happen in this country.”
The FBI is trying to access the locked iPhone of one of the
San Bernardino killers and insists it needs Apple’s due to the software
protections built into iOS, which require Apple’s unique signature.
But security expert and NSA surveillance leaker Edward
Snowden recently said that the FBI’s assertions that only Apple has the
capability to unlock the phone is “respectfully, bullshit”.
Other security researchers have said that for Apple to
modify the iOS software of the iPhone 5C to allow the FBI to guess the passcode
via a machine without losing data would be a slippery slope.
Apple has the backing of the majority of the technology
industry, including Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook and Google, which makes the
most-used smartphone operating system, Android.
The case will come to a head this month when Apple and
the FBI go to federal court to contest the order. The US government was recently
dealt a blow in a similar but unrelated case over the unlocking of an iPhone in
New York, which it is currently appealing against.
Comments
Post a Comment