security

The ongoing battle between Apple and the FBI has taken a rather interesting turn, with Apple apparently looking to get Congress involved in the dispute. Apple has been provided with a legal order from the federal circuit in the United States that tells the company to work with law enforcement agencies in an effort to unlock and leverage data from an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters. Apple has thus far contested the order due to the nature of the FBI demands, which essentially want a new version of iOS to be created to provide a backdoor into the mobile platform. Now, it is being reported that Apple would like the Congress to get involved in the matter and settle the dispute.

FBI Director James Comey recently said that Apple's assistance in San Bernardino iPhone case would represent a simple one-off event, and that it wouldn't represent the opening of floodgates that would see Apple extracting data from any old device. Well, only 24 hours later, it seems that the Department of Justice doesn't exactly share the mindset, and is filing court orders across the United States now in the hope of forcing Apple to extract iPhone data in a dozen further criminal investigations.

It probably won't come as any surprise that Apple is still vehemently opposed to assisting the FBI in decrypting the iPhone that belonged to one of the accused in the California shooting last year. After initially being ordered by a federal judge to assist law enforcement agencies with their enquiries, the Cupertino-based company has since opted against compliance on the grounds that what it is being asked to do could have serious ongoing repercussions for all iPhone owners. Now, in an effort to shed some clarity on the situation, Tim Cook's company has published a FAQ that goes into additional detail as to why compliance is a very bad idea in this instance.