National Security v. Privacy

National Security v. Privacy

In December, 2015, San Bernardino, California saw one of its biggest terrorist attacks in the recent times. A married couple opened fire at an event where about 80 persons were in attendance. The terrorists killed 14 persons while 22 were seriously injured. A few hours from the attack, the Police pursued the attackers and killed them in a shootout. Amongst the possessions of the shooters recovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation was a mobile phone, an Apple iPhone 5C model, which is believed to contain vital information about the attackers.

Despite efforts, the FBI was unable to unlock the phone due to its advanced security features (maybe they should've announced a reward for the task!). The FBI then contacted Apple Inc, the manufacturer of the phone with a request to create a new version of iOS (the iPhone's operating system) to bypass the security features to access the information on the phone, which is against the policies of Apple Inc.

Thus the company declined this request. The FBI then proceeded to obtain a court order requiring Apple Inc to comply with the request.

This is not the first occasion that Apple Inc has been served with such an order. Similar orders have been passed against the iPhone manufacturer in the past which are currently under challenge. Apple has a strict no-comprise policy when it comes to security/ privacy features on its products. It is however reported by some sections of the media that Apple assisted the Government of China to extract data from iPhones.

Apple argues that hacking into the phone would set a bad precedent and would certainly compromise the security and privacy of its customers in the future while FBI argues that this is important for national security and has also offered that Apple can hack into the phone from its own offices and can delete the source-code once the work is done. However, we all know that source-codes are not stored in a single drive. Anyone with access to this code can be a huge security threat.

Recently, an appellate court while deciding an Appeal in Apple Inc's favour, observed that the All Writ's Act cannot be used to "force a company to modify its products". The Department of Justice has appealed this order in a higher court.

Now the question at large is how far can the privacy of individuals be compromised in the garb of national security?