Apple challenges order to to help FBI unlock iPhone of California shooter

Tashfeen Malik, left, and her husband Syed Farook pictured passing through Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in this July 27, 2014 handout photo. Apple has challenged a magistrate's order to retrieve information about Farook from his iPhone. US Customs and Border Protection/Handout via ReutersShow less

WASHINGTON // Apple CEO Tim Cook said on Wednesday his company will challenge a federal magistrate’s order to unlock an iPhone used by one of the shooters in December’s terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California.

Federal investigators haven’t been able to unlock the iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, who carried out a shooting on December 2 that killed 14 people at a holiday party, the government said in a filing in federal court in Riverside, California.

US magistrate judge Sheri Pym on Tuesday ordered Apple to provide “reasonable technical assistance” to the FBI to recover information from the phone.

In a statement posted early Wednesday on the company’s website, Mr Cook argued that such a move would undermine encryption by creating a backdoor that could potentially be used on other future devices.

“The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers - including tens of millions of American citizens - from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals,” he said.

“We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack.”

He said that the demand threatened the security of Apple’s customers and had “implications far beyond the legal case at hand”.

The ruling was the first-of-its-kind and a significant victory for the Justice Department in a technology policy debate that pits digital privacy against national security interests.

* Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters