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The encryption debate is heating back up.
Monday, the San Antonio Express-News confirmed that Texas authorities have served Apple with a search warrant for files stored on an iPhone SE discovered at the scene of the Sutherland Springs church shooting earlier this month.
The confirmation puts Apple back into a complicated legal battle with the government over the privacy rights of dead people and whether or not the company should assist the government in unlocking smartphones during criminal investigations.
SEE ALSO:The FBI has a 'huge' problem with your smartphoneIn order to unlock an encrypted phone, such as the one belonging to the Texas church shooter, Apple would need to create a "backdoor" software key that CEO Tim Cook has previously referred to as the "software equivalent of cancer." Apple has and continues to argue that creating such a key would have disastrous consequences for all iPhone users because it would make the phones easier to hack.
“We have no sympathy for terrorists,” Cook famously said during an interview with ABC News. “In my view they left their rights when they decided to do awful things…We’re not protecting their privacy, we’re protecting the rights…and public safety of everyone else."
Given the sensitive personal and financial information people routinely store on their phones and Apple's vested interested in the security of their operating system, it's not surprising that the company is loathe to create and then advertise a backdoor into the iPhone. But it's also inevitable that some of the information stored on iPhones and other smartphones will be relevant to criminal investigations and that law enforcement will want access to it.
The Department of Justice and FBI have been at odds with Apple over encryption ever since the 2015 San Bernardino shooting that left 14 people dead and 22 injured. In the aftermath of that attack, a high-stakes legal showdown pitted Apple against the DOJ on whether Apple should be required to unlock the suspect's encrypted iPhone in a search for potential evidence. Cases like these have special significance because the owners of the phones are deceased, and so can't be compelled to give up the passcodes.
Now, the issue is back in the news after the Texas Rangers successfully acquired a warrant for data on the iPhone SE belonging to the Sutherland Springs, Texas church shooter. Earlier this month, FBI lead investigator Christopher Combs blamed encryption for the agency's inability to access the shooter's phone data and messages, according to The Hill.
“It actually highlights an issue that you’ve all heard about before with advance of the phones and the technology and the encryption," Combs said. "Law enforcement, whether it’s at the state, local or the federal level, is increasingly not able to get into these phones.”
However, Apple responded by placing blame on the FBI's own incompetence. The company said that it might have been able to help the agency had the FBI not waited more than 48 hours to tell the company it was trying to unlock the iPhone. Apple claims it could have suggested using the Touch ID fingerprint scanner on the phone, but the system locks down after two days for security reasons.
"Our team immediately reached out to the FBI after learning from their press conference on [Nov. 7] that investigators were trying to access a mobile phone," said Apple in a statement sent to Mashable. "We offered assistance and said we would expedite our response to any legal process they send us."
So what does this all mean for your privacy rights?
For now, if the FBI wants to access data from someone's phone, it will either need to use Touch ID within the 48-hour window created by Apple, or use powerful software to bypass the passcode. The only catch to using password-cracking software is that it runs the risk of erasing (or corrupting) all of the phone's data. The FBI could also hire a third-party firm, as it did in the San Bernardino case for more than $1 million, in order to access the data it wants.
There's also the possibility that the DOJ enters another high-stakes legal battle with Apple. The DOJ could drag Apple to court in order to argue that companies should make devices that can be accessed by law enforcement with an official order from a judge. There is, however, no indication that the DOJ will do so.
"To this day, no law enforcement agency has reached out for technical assistance on the device," said an Apple spokesperson in a phone call with Mashable.
What this means for the average person like you and me is that the encrypted data on your phone remains completely concealed from the prying eyes of law enforcement officials — as long as you lock the phone using a passcode rather than biometrics like Touch ID or Face ID. Although encryption might occasionally make it harder for law enforcement to carry out investigations, for now, it's a privacy protection that even the worst members of society have a right to.
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