Mark Zuckerberg has taken a side in the fight between Apple and the FBI over the encrypted contents of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook’s phone.
“We’re pretty sympathetic with Tim (Cook) and Apple on this one,” Zuckerberg said Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “We believe in encryption… I just think it’s not the right thing to block that from the mainstream products that people want to use.”
Zuckerberg said not only is it bad policy for the FBI to require Apple to create a backdoor, most people set on encrypting their phones will find a way to achieve their desired privacy.
Facebook, he said, has always cooperated with authorities to provide necessary info, while also trying to keep terrorist and ISIS propaganda off of Facebook.
“We feel like we have a pretty big responsibility running this big network and community to help prevent terrorism and different kind of attacks,” Zuckerberg said at MWC. “If there’s any content that’s promoting terrorism or sympathizing with ISIS we take that off the service, take those people off the service.”
Zuckerberg said if Facebook has the opportunity to work with the government to make sure terrorists aren't using the service they will. The company won’t, however, support a backdoor or the FBI’s current stance with Apple.
The FBI, and Judge Sheri Pym of U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, essentially asked Apple to create a new OS that would allow the FBI to decrypt the shooter’s phone. Doing so, according to Cook, would have a wide range of unintended consequences.
“We are challenging the FBI’s demands with the deepest respect for American democracy and a love of our country. We believe it would be in the best interest of everyone to step back and consider the implications,” Cook said in a statement last week.
Right now, not even Apple has access to some information on your phone because of encryption. Should the FBI get its way, that OS could then be used to decrypt any phone.
“I don’t think requiring back doors is either going to be an effective way (for) security or the right thing to do,” Zuckerberg said Monday.
