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A federal court hearing over whether the Apple ( AAPL ) must help the government unlock an iPhone in a criminal investigation has been cancelled at the Justice Department’s request. Federal prosecutors had asked to postpone a court hearing scheduled for Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Riverside, Calif. They said an outside party on Sunday had demonstrated to the FBI a possible method for unlocking the iPhone in question. “If the method is viable, it should eliminate the need for the assistance from Apple … set forth in the All Writs Act Order in this case,” prosecutors wrote, according to Politico . The Justice Department asked the court for time to test the method of unlocking the phone. On Feb. 16, U.S. Magistrate Sheri Pym ordered Apple to provide “reasonable technical assistance” to the FBI to unlock an iPhone belonging to Syed Farook, one of the two now-deceased killers in the San Bernardino, Calif., shootings on Dec. 2. Apple has protested the ruling, saying that it would create a “back door” to bypass its security protections and thus threaten the personal data of millions of iPhone users. It said the government was overstepping its bounds by ordering Apple to write special software to hack its own smartphones. Earlier Monday at Apple’s spring product launch event, Apple CEO Tim Cook used the occasion to reinforce the company’s argument that it shouldn’t have to weaken its smartphone encryption. “We need to protect your data and your privacy,” Cook said. “This is an issue that affects all of us and we will not shrink from this responsibility.” Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News