Apple CEO Tim Cook explained on Wednesday evening the company’s opposition to creating a “back door” for officials to get around security on its devices, saying it would be equivalent to creating “cancer.”
“The only way we know would be to write a piece of software that we view as sort of the software equivalent of cancer. We think it’s bad news to write, we would never write it, we have never written it, and that is what is at stake,” Cook said in an interview with ABC’s David Muir.
He also said Apple could have helped the FBI if the agency had approached the company privately, but that executives instead had learned of the request through court documents and the media.
“I can’t talk about the tactics of the FBI,” Cook said. “They’ve chosen what they’ve done, they’ve chosen to do this out in the public for whatever reasons they have. What we think at this point, given that it is out in the public, we need to stand tall … on principle.”
Cook said keeping Apple’s devices secure was about the public’s safety as much as about privacy.
“There’s probably more information about you on your phone than there is in your house. Our smartphones are loaded with our intimate conversations, our financial data, our health records. They’re also loaded with the location of our kids in many cases. So it’s not just about privacy, it’s also about public safety,” he said.
Last week, a federal judge ordered Apple to assist in breaking into an iPhone 5C used by terrorists in the December attack in San Bernardino, Calif. Apple has until Friday to appeal that order, which the company has said it intends to do. Cook said he also plans to speak with President Obama about the issue.
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“This is not a position that we would like to be in. It is a very uncomfortable position. To oppose your government on something doesn’t feel good. And to oppose it on something where we are advocating for civil liberties, which they are supposed to protect, it is incredibly ironic,” he concluded.
