In December 2015, there was a terrorist attack that happened in San Bernardino. The San Bernardino attack frightened and affected many in California and the United States as a whole. After the attack, the FBI requested Apple to encrypt the iPhone of the terrorists that were involved in the terrorism attack. Let's go back to square one in case you do not know what encryption is; encryption is encoding information such as text messages so others can read it. With the San Bernardino terrorist attack, Apple agreed to encrypt the iPhone of the terrorist in order to help the FBI. This incident created many upsets with Apple customers. Apple sent out a message to all Apple customers in February regarding the issue since there was so much commotion and complaints from customers.
On March 22, 2016, Brussels was attacked by terrorists at an airport. Many were harmed and found dead due to the attack. With the San Bernardino case still fresh in our minds, the FBI is trying to use Apple once again to encrypt the messages on the terrorists’ phones. Apple was not 100 percent on board this time. The upset from customers was hurting the image of Apple and making Apple not “credible” to some. However, according to ABC News “now a third party has emerged and says they can [unlock an iPhone], maybe that recalibrates things” (ABC News). With that, Apple does not need to be involved with encryption of iPhones anymore and the case would now move to the third party.
Should Apple have helped the FBI with the encryption in the first place? The San Bernardino case was a scare to many of us when it happened. On top of that, terrorism is at large right now. We hear cases all the time on the news about killings, massacres, terrorist attacks and terrorist activities. When the topic of encrypting iPhone first came up, I personally thought it was a great idea. My mindset was if encrypting into a terrorist’s iPhone can help the safety of the lives of our society, why not? It’s not my iPhone or my private information, so why should it bother me? After a while, I started to understand and realize why everyone was so upset about the encryption. To break it down in easier terms and understanding: with the encryption, the FBI has this special code that they can now encode all data for all iPhones, and they basically have the “Morse code” (a little dramatic but just so you get the idea).
This sounds like the FBI and Apple is going against our privacy rights doesn’t it? Privacy is important to me and I am sure it is important to a lot of other people, too. I do not want the government to even have the ability to go through my messages and information on my iPhone. Any of my pictures, my videos, my text messages, and my notes are all mine. The government probably would not just go through random peoples’ iPhones without any suspicion, but knowing the fact that they have the ability now do that is very upsetting.
So should Apple help with the encrypting again for the Brussel case? The answer is complicated because I would rather have Apple help with the encryption of the iPhone (even though encryption should not be a thing) than a third party that I do not know. Apple seems to be the “safer” option at this point. Even though our privacy rights are on the line and encryption of phones and looking at others’ private information does not seem humane, Apple should help. The safety of our lives is more important than protecting some pictures and text messages on our phones. If encryption can help reduce the terrorism that is happening around the world, they should go for it. So, the real question for you is: do you choose privacy or safety?
