The FBI has retracted its court order against Apple, with the government organization having successfully unlocked the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters without the company’s help or consent.
In a court filing written by prosecutors on Monday, obtained by the Washington Post, it is revealed that the FBI has managed to successfully access the data left on the iPhone. This news comes after the FBI ordered Apple to grant them the tools to unlock the device, which they claimed Apple alone had access to, which prompted the company’s CEO Tim Cook to release an open letter declaring that such an action would present a major security issue for every iPhone owner.
The filing reads:
“The government has now successfully accessed the data stored on Farook’s iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple Inc. mandated by Court’s Order Comeppling Apple Inc. to Assist Agents in Search dated February 16, 2016.”
In a statement, Apple said: “From the beginning, we objected to the FBI’s demand that Apple build a backdoor into the iPhone because we believed it was wrong and would set a dangerous precedent. As a result of the government’s dismissal, neither of these occurred. This case should never have been brought.”
The FBI will now decide whether or not to disclose how they managed to unlock the iPhone with Apple, as in an ironic twist Apple could now potentially take the US government to court in order to obtain this information from them.
