Assignment 4
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Privacy is the freedom for each person to have control over private information. It is the “claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others” (Solove, p. 42, 2011). One is thus free to choose what information can be known and by who it can be known. Respecting this right, Apple is now creating phones that cannot be hacked into, even by the company itself. Apple insists, despite the FBI, that it remains a simple moderator, a phone company rather than an ally of spying for the sake of “national security”.
For one to be allowed privacy is thus for one to be allowed a form of freedom and autonomy, an opportunity for one to express him or herself and decide who listens. It is also a protection against all those who infringe upon privacy either for the act itself or even worse, in order to gain information that could sell to advertisement companies. However, in this case, the question is that of privacy infringed under the name of security and law enforcement.
Today, with all social media being used on a daily basis, storing data literally showing where everyone is, when, and what they were eating at the time, things are getting out of control. At first, people were not informed that Facebook owns the information and can thus do anything with it — that is due to people not being responsible enough to read the “Terms and conditions”. However today, people are aware but they willingly fall for it because it is so socially widespread. One of the causes of its popularity is actually the widespread of smartphones who make it easy to have “hand-held computer” (Appuzo, 2016). And thus it makes it easy for everyone to communicate information, and access it till it goes all the way to stalking and even trafficking such information. Now, everyone can barge into one’s life, harass, abuse one and use one’s information at will.
And so the problem occurs, terrorists kill a big number of people and leave an iPhone behind but the production company refuses to help crack the phone and is accused of “keeping secrets for a terrorist.” (Appuzo, 2016). What the company is really doing, in their opinion, is actually be credible in regard to their clients by ensuring their privacy. Apple thus considers it a treason to its customers’ trust to let the FBI into the phone, but the company is also defying an “18th century law” (Appuzo, 2016).
In this case, it is very respectful that Apple chose to be true to its customers and not be a part of this whole spying business the NSA and FBI have been practicing. However, when the benefits of such a help is obviously fruitful and helpful in the bigger picture, at least from a utilitarian point of view, Apple could have broken its word to catch the wrongdoer. However, to save itself, Apple was very smart to not own the crack to the password themselves. That is, even Apple does not know how to crack into the phone, they are thus not “partners in crime” or silent witnesses. They are simply the provider of this metal object that happens to contain valuable information.
What is interesting is that Apple actually considers humanitarian exceptions, personal ones. An example is the Italian father Fabbretti who wanted to retrieve pictures and “memories” (Agence France-Presse in Rome, 2016) from his son’s iPhone, the son having died from cancer. The father argues that in his case it is not infringing privacy but an act of love, he also adds that his son had “added [his] fingerprint ID” to the phone.
Here, it is quite obvious what ought to be done, and the problem resides when it comes to bigger controversial issues such as the terrorist Farook’s. It is therefore very hard to draw the line between providing or helping security and breaking customer trust. It seems Apple, being a company which aims at selling more than anything else, has gone for the more lucrative “ethical” decision.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Appuzo, M. (2016, February 17). The New York Times. Retrieved from Should the Authorities be Able to Access your iPhone?: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/us/politics/whether-phones-should-lock-out-the-fbi.html?_r=1
Comics, A. X. (2016, December 19). Privacy on Social Media. Retrieved from Online Biz Smarts: http://onlinebizsmarts.com/social-media-post/privacy-on-social-media/
Margulies. (20163). Retrieved from Cagle: cagle.com
Rome, A. F.-P. (2016, March 31). The Guardian. Retrieved from Father asks Apple head Tim Cook to unblock dead son’s phone: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/31/father-apple-tim-cook-unblock-dead-son-iphone-leonardo-fabbretti
Slane, C. (2016, November 7). Slane Cartoons. Retrieved from Original cartoons to promote privacy, security, : slane.co.nz
Solove, D. J. (2011). Perspectives on Privacy. p. 42
