New Delhi: US-based tech giant Apple has refused to unlock the iPhone of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on the grounds that the data can only be accessed with a password set by the device owner, ThePrint has learnt.
According to a source in the Enforcement Directorate, the ED had approached Apple “informally” requesting to access Kejriwal’s phone as part of the investigation in the excise policy scam, but was refused.
“There was no written communication but Apple was asked to help with opening Kejriwal’s phone as it is required to assist in the investigation, but the request was denied,” the source said, adding that this is not the first time that Apple denied access to the agency.
Kejriwal was arrested on 21 March night in connection with the excise policy case after hours of questioning at his residence. On the night of his arrest, the CM had reportedly switched off his iPhone and refused to share the password.
According to sources, Kejriwal said that by accessing his mobile phone data and chats, the ED would be privy to details of AAP’s “election strategy” and alliances.
The ED has told the court that the Delhi chief minister has been giving “evasive replies” in five statements, recorded each day, between 23 and 27 March.
The ED sources said the agency has “sufficient proof” and “statements of other accused” to establish that Kejriwal asked for Rs 100 crore from Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC K. Kavitha in exchange for benefits in the liquor trade in Delhi.
Kejriwal was aware of “how undue favours were being extended to the licensees like waivers and reduction in the license fee, and the extension of the L-1 license (granted to business entities having wholesale distribution experience in liquor trade) in exchange for kickbacks”, according to the ED.
‘Defence of civil liberties’
In 2016, Apple CEO Tim Cook told his employees that the refusal to cooperate with a US government to unlock an iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the two shooters in the San Bernardino attack, was a “defence of civil liberties”.
He had also called for the Department of Justice to withdraw its order in an email to staff sent the morning after FBI director James Comey said the company should comply in order to help bring justice to the victims.
Cook had said Apple has “no tolerance or sympathy for terrorists” but that following the Department of Justice’s orders would set a “dangerous precedent.” “At stake is the data security of hundreds of millions of law-abiding people and setting a dangerous precedent that threatens everyone’s civil liberties,” he had said.
Four years on, Apple’s then senior director of global privacy, Jane Horvath, had also said that “end-to-end encryption is critically important to the services we rely on.”
(Edited by Tony Rai)