Apple will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for government, police – even with search warrants

“Apple said Wednesday night that it is making it impossible for the company to turn over data from most iPhones or iPads to police — even when they have a search warrant — taking a hard new line as tech companies attempt to blunt allegations that they have too readily participated in government efforts to collect user information,” Craig Timberg reports for The Washington Post.

“The move, announced with the publication of a new privacy policy tied to the release of Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 8, amounts to an engineering solution to a legal quandary,” Timberg reports. “Rather than comply with binding court orders, Apple has reworked its latest encryption in a way that prevents the company — or anyone but the device’s owner — from gaining access to the vast troves of user data typically stored on smartphones or tablet computers.”

“Apple once maintained the ability to unlock some content on devices for legally binding police requests but will no longer do so for iOS 8, it said in the new privacy policy,” Timberg reports. “‘Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data,’” Apple said on its Web site. ‘So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.'”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Bravo, Apple!

What’s left of the Fourth Amendment thanks you.

Checkmate, Google.

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