A United Nations official warned that the FBI’s bid to force Apple to hack a locked iPhone is akin to opening a Pandora’s box that could have devastating effects on human rights around the globe.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein issued a statement Friday saying that if the FBI is successful in forcing the phone to be unlocked, the case will “set a precedent that may make it impossible for Apple or any other major international IT company to safeguard their clients’ privacy anywhere in the world.”
“It is potentially a gift to authoritarian regimes, as well as to criminal hackers,” Mr. Al Hussein said. “There have already been a number of concerted efforts by authorities in other States to force IT and communications companies such as Google and Blackberry to expose their customers to mass surveillance.”
Apple and the FBI are locked in a legal battle over a court order issued last month that forces the tech company to create a way for the FBI to hack the password-protected iPhone 5c used by now-deceased San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook.
With both Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed in a shootout with authorities after they killed 14 people and injured 22 others in an attack on a community center where Farook worked, FBI officials believe data on the phone may be invaluable in their ongoing investigation into the attack.
But Apple officials have said that if the company is forced to create a way bypass the phone’s encryption security features and hack the phone that they will be undermining the security of the company’s technology and creating a template for law enforcement to break into any current model of iPhone.
Tech companies have generally taken Apple’s side, supporting its resistance to the court order. Meanwhile law enforcement agencies across the country are hopeful that if the FBI is able hack the phone that they too will finally have a way into locked iPhones they have collected as part of a myriad of other criminal investigations.
But the U.N. official’s statements show how far the effects of the case could be felt.
While Mr. Al Hussein said he supported the FBI’s investigation into the “abominable crime,” but argued that there were other less damaging ways to sort out whether the attackers had outside help in the San Bernardino attacks.
“There is, unfortunately, no shortage of security forces around the world who will take advantage of the ability to break into people’s phones if they can,” he said. “In an age when we store so much of our personal and professional lives on our smartphones and other devices, how is it going to be possible to protect that information without fail-safe encryption systems?”
He said the debate thus far around the issue has focused too much on the need for national security, and not enough on the unintended consequences.
“So, in essence, what we have here is an issue of proportionality: in order to possibly — but by no means certainly — gain extra information about the dreadful crime committed by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife in San Bernardino, we may end up enabling a multitude of other crimes all across the world, including in the United States,” Mr. Al Hussein said.
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
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