Recently, the well known corporation Apple faced a moral and ethical situation in which the entirety of Apple users’ privacy was questioned.

The problem first arose last December in a deadly act of terrorism in San Bernardino, California, where 14 people were killed and 22 were seriously injured in a shooting and attempted bombing at the Inland Regional Center. Shortly after, the FBI turned to Apple for help in the investigation.

Apple provided their assistance by searching into the data and cellular devices of the people involved in accordance to search warrant laws. While this proved to be helpful to the outcome of this specific case, it aroused concerns in the Apple community and general public after the FBI suggested using these devices to bypass personal data on a more global scale. People have many opinions on whether or not what Apple’s decision was the right one.

“I think that Apple should comply [with the FBI] and not worry about the economic factors and whether or not they are going to lose customers. [They should] actually worry about helping out on finding people that could potentially be dangerous and do things in the future because you might never know what the information on that device is, if you don’t look,” Ms. Allison Peda, English, said.

On Feb. 16, Apple’s chief executive officer Tim Cook wrote a personal letter addressing the issues and breaking down the logistics of the incident. He revealed that Apple would not be complying with the requests of the FBI, and instead of providing the ‘backdoor’ to all data, they would protect the personal information of the general public.