On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that Apple must provide federal investigators with "reasonable technical assistance" in accessing encrypted data on an iPhone that belonged to Syed Farook, one of the San Bernardino shooters, court documents say.
Prosecutors said they have been unable to access "relevant, critical" data on the phone because the iPhone is locked and they can't break in. On Dec. 2, Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people at the Inland Regional Center, and prosecutors say the iPhone 5c, issued to Farook by his employer, the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, could show who the shooters were communicating with before the attack, and if they had any help planning and carrying out the massacre. The judge said Apple must provide assistance like bypassing the auto-erase function and letting investigators send an unlimited amount of passwords to use in trying to unlock the phone.
The phone was found in a Lexus belonging to Farook's family, and investigators say they discovered inside a trash can several other phones belonging to the married couple that they tried to destroy. Apple has five days to respond if it believes compliance would be "unreasonably burdensome," NBC News reports.
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