Following the withdrawal of a court order for Apple to help crack the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone after the FBI said it had managed to unlock it on its own, the company has issued a statement, which reads as follows:
From the beginning, we objected to the FBI’s demand that Apple build a backdoor into the iPhone because we believed it was wrong and would set a dangerous precedent. As a result of the government’s dismissal, neither of these occurred. This case should never have been brought.
We will continue to help law enforcement with their investigations, as we have done all along, and we will continue to increase the security of our products as the threats and attacks on our data become more frequent and more sophisticated.
Apple believes deeply that people in the United States and around the world deserve data protection, security and privacy. Sacrificing one for the other only puts people and countries at greater risk.
This case raised issues which deserve a national conversation about our civil liberties, and our collective security and privacy. Apple remains committed to participating in that discussion.
It essentially reiterates what Apple has been saying all along about this case, but what I find interesting is that the company’s promise to make its products even more secure.
As some experts have noted, if the FBI can crack a single iPhone, it’s possible that others may be able to do so as well. At this juncture, it seems like Apple has no choice but to look into ways of beefing up security.
The question is, what happens the next time there’s an attack and a terrorist is found in possession of an iPhone?
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Given the way this case played out, with not nearly enough actual debate and no conclusion as whether Apple is legally bound to help the government, it’s possible that we’ll see a rerun of this episode sometime in the future.
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