The New York District Attorney called on a new federal legislation that will require operating systems to unlock upon a warrant. District Attorney Cyrus Vance wants Apple's OS to be warrant friendly but Apple refuses to budge.
Manhattan recently launched their new cyberlab which houses over 400 locked iPhones that the DA wants to use for investigation of serious crimes. The DA insists they didn't want a backdoor to Apple or Google's products. What they want specifically is for Apple to reverse its September 2014 encryption, which prevents authorities to explore an iPhone for investigation without a warrant, ZDNet reported.
Vance further insisted that their request to extract data will not expose the user from hackers. He said Apple's refusal to cooperate or act on the problem will only lead to unjustified battle between private corporations and law enforcement agencies. Vance said that a new federal legislation will put this battle to rest.
When Apple introduced its iOS 8 back in 2014, it prevented anyone else to access a user's iPhone other than the user himself. This was immediately followed by other smartphone companies, Tech Republic reported.
So when the FBI wanted to access the iPhone 5C of the San Bernardino attacker and demanded Apple to crack the user's password, the battle was on. FBI declared they couldn't open the smartphone without Apple's help issuing a court order to demand the company to build a different iOS that would defy or go around the security that iOS 8 has. But Apple defied it saying it would raise security risks not just for one Apple user, but for all.
Vance's cyberlab investigates crimes such as larceny, homicides, and sexual assaults or offenses. The argument of whether or not criminals should be given the advantage to perpetrate crimes in the digital age is brewing again. But these decisions should be carefully made both by the legislative body of the country and the product vendors themselves because that it the prize of being a civilized community.
