14 DAY TRIAL // Apple’s ongoing fight against the United States government is becoming a techno-political dispute, and while technology companies seem to defend the Cupertino-based firm, politicians see no other resolution than a hack that would help the FBI break into the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers.
Although Microsoft has already voiced its opinion with press statements issued by some of the groups it backs, but also with the help of Bill Gates (whose comments were more or less confusing), the company hasn’t yet presented its view on the case in a separate statement. But in reality, Microsoft has no other choice than to support Apple in the fight against the FBI, and there’s a very good reason for this.
Redmond has its very own fight with the United States government, and in some cases, it’s shockingly similar to Apple’s.
The US Department of Justice is seeking information from a Microsoft server hosted in Ireland, and a government order forced the company to provide access to the account even though the data center is overseas. Microsoft has already opposed the order, claiming that a US warranty isn’t valid for servers located in other countries, and the case is still underway at the moment.
While very little is known about the accounts involved in the case, it appears that US investigators are seeking access to the information of a person suspected of drug dealing, so there’s no connection to any terrorist activities. But just like in Apple’s case, Microsoft claims that it’s not its business to break into this account.
Similar statements, almost the same words
Furthermore, statements released by Microsoft executives are extremely similar to the ones issued by Apple’s CEO Tim Cook.
“These are the private communications of our customers. They're not ours. We don't have access to them. We don't want access to them. That's a very different position to saying that any data stored with a cloud provider is a business record of that cloud provider, that can then be turned over to the government. That is a very dangerous precedent,” John Frank, deputy general counsel and VP of legal and corporate affairs at Microsoft, pointed out in 2015.
Tim Cook said pretty much the same thing in a statement released last week:
“For many years, we have used encryption to protect our customers’ personal data because we believe it’s the only way to keep their information safe. We have even put that data out of our own reach, because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business. We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack.”
Clearly, both companies are afraid of this precedent that the US government could create by forcing one of them to break into user accounts or devices because, after that, it could request access to more customer information based on the original case.
In the end, Apple and Microsoft seem to be fighting for the same cause, but for the moment, the US government doesn’t seem to be willing to back up in neither of the two cases.