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The recent Apple court case against the U.S. government has been dominating headlines and
stoking our collective paranoid fears.
Should the government be able to force private companies to help decrypt our devices or does
this set a dangerous precedent?
Here are the facts.
One of the San Bernardino shooters had a passcode locked iPhone given to him by his employer.
The iPhone has a newer form of encryption that Apple has been using since iOS 8 to ensure
that hackers could not gain access to personal information.
This also means that Apple can’t gain access to your iPhone, and neither can anyone else
if they don’t have your passcode.
The FBI could not use brute-force methods to find the passcode, because ten incorrect
attempts would erase the contents of this particular iPhone.
The current court case is about whether or not the FBI, or anyone in the government,
can force a company to create encryption ‘loopholes’ so that they can bypass security measures
created to protect personal data.
And right now Apple and many other tech companies have decided to go public even though it’s
a complicated case because they are worried about creating a precedent for less extreme situations
The FBI has a better chance at making their case palatable to the public because it’s
a terrorism case, but the stakes are high.
And it’s working. 51% of Americans think that Apple should unlock iPhones for security.
The FBI is basing its case on an act called The All Writs Act, which dates back to 1798
and was last updated in 1977.
So it’s pretty relevant for iPhones.
But here’s the rub: the FBI can’t have its encrypted cake and eat it too.
There’s no way to create a backdoor that the FBI can use and that can’t be used by
nefarious characters trying to get at your personal information.
In fact, privacy and security aren’t opposing ideas, they’re related in ways that demand
careful thought and consideration.
A larger question remains: is this really an argument about privacy vs security, or
are we being distracted from having a more nuanced conversation about the role of personal
data and technology?
And furthermore, why is a private corporation and a government agency deciding how our private
information can become available without a democratic debate?
Security or not, these issues should be made through a legislative process that involves
the public, not by the few players in this goose chase of security and privacy.