If the Federal Bureau of Investigation wins its case against the tech giant, where it demands the company to help it unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, it can also force Apple to turn on other users’ iPhone cameras and microphones.
Within the ongoing court case, the FBI wants Apple to create custom software able to bypass security features of iOS in order to allow the law enforcement agency to brute force the passcode of the killer’s smartphone.
However, Apple refuses doing so, because making such modifications would set a dangerous precedent in offering backdoors into all iPhones.
In the ongoing investigation, the FBI wants to access the locked iPhone of one of the killers. The agency claims that it needs Apple’s help because of the software protection built into the operating system of the device.
The latter requires Apple’s unique signature. In the meantime, Edward Snowden recently said in its speech that the FBI is not telling the truth when saying that only Apple is able to unlock the phone, and is capable of it without the tech giant’s help.
Other security researchers agree that for Apple to make such modifications to the iOS software in order to allow the government to guess the passcode via a machine without losing data is questionable.
Many industry giants that are mostly rivals to the company have backed its position: the list of supporters includes Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and the Android maker Google.
San Bernardino iPhone case will come to a head in March, when Apple and the FBI meet in federal court to contest the order. It should be mentioned that the American government recently lost a similar case over the unlocking of an iPhone in New York.