Once again, it’s Apple and the government trying to find a balance between security and privacy in the wake of a tragedy.
In a letter sent late Monday to Apple’s general counsel Katherine Adams, the FBI has asked Apple to help unlock two iPhones that investigators believe were owned by Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, who carried out a mass shooting at a Naval Air Station in Florida last month.
The report stated that the two iPhones are passcode protected, and one of them seems to have been damaged by gunfire. Apple has stated that the company has already provided all of the data in its possession to the FBI:
We have the greatest respect for law enforcement and have always worked cooperatively to help in their investigations. When the FBI requested information from us relating to this case a month ago, we gave them all of the data in our possession and we will continue to support them with the data we have available.
Apple found itself in a similar situation back in 2016, when a U.S. federal judge ordered the company to aid in unlocking an iPhone owned by Syed Faros, one of the two shooters in the December 2015 San Bernardino killings. At the time, Apple opposed the order, citing that it might set a “dangerous precedent.”
The dispute would end when the FBI found a third party company to unlock the iPhone, retrieved the data, and withdrew the lawsuit.
Apple’s dispute with the FBI ended in just weeks after the U.S. government found an alternate way to access the data on the iPhone and withdrew the lawsuit.
Apple appears to have taken a hard line once again, opting for privacy after providing what it could as far as data from the iPhones for the FBI.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.