Bill Gates backs the FBI against Apple over the San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone

If the government wants it, the government should have it, argues Gates

Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has taken the side of the US government in tech giant Apple's legal tussle with the FBI over the San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone.

In an interview with the Financial Times newspaper, Gates came down decisively on the FBI's side, suggesting that Apple had an obligation to comply with the court order issued last week, and to help it access and decrypt the data on the terrorist's iPhone.

"It is no different than [the question of] should anybody ever have been able to tell the phone company to get information? Should anybody be able to get at bank records?" he asked.

Following the court order, Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote an open letter to customers explaining the company's decision to oppose the order, which he believes will undermine the security of all iPhone users.

"The US government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand," wrote Cook. For Apple to back down would set a "dangerous precedent that threatens everyone's civil liberties", he added.

Gates, though, rejected this argument. "The FBI is not asking for some general thing, [it is] asking for a particular case," he claimed.

Cynics have suggested that Apple's high-profile dispute with the FBI over the San Bernardino terrorist's phone might be little more than a proxy for a bigger dispute between the technology company and US law enforcement agencies.

Indeed, according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is fighting as many as 12 other cases against the US Justice Department over its demands for access to the data on people's iPhones - and none of those cases has anything to do with terrorism, according to the WSJ.

Furthermore, Gates's insouciance over the issue has also raised renewed questions over the use that his old company Microsoft will make over the wide-ranging telemetry data sent from Windows 10 and, increasingly via recent updates, Windows 7 and 8 back to the Redmond, Seattle-based company.