Is Apple Picking a Fight With the US Government?

[Commentary] Apple is not designing systems to prevent law enforcement from executing legitimate warrants. It’s building systems that prevent everyone who might want your data -- including hackers, malicious insiders, and even hostile foreign governments -- from accessing your phone. This is absolutely in the public interest. Moreover, in the process of doing so, Apple is setting a precedent that users, and not companies, should hold the keys to their own devices.

The problem with keys is that once you have them, sooner or later someone will expect you to use them. Today those requests originate from police in the United States. Tomorrow they may come from the governments of China or Russia. And while those countries certainly have legitimate crime to prosecute, they’re also well known for using technology to persecute dissidents. Apple may not see either public interest or shareholder value in becoming the world’s superintendent -- meekly unlocking the door for whichever nation’s police ask them to. Apple’s new encryption may not solve this problem entirely -- foreign governments could always ban the sale of Apple products or force Apple to redesign. But by approaching the world with a precedent that customers, not Apple, are responsible for the security of their phones, Apple can at least make a credible attempt to stay above the fray.

[Green is a research professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University]