AAPL Apple Inc

By Devlin Barrett 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced Wednesday it wouldn't consider telling Apple Inc. how the agency was able to unlock a terrorist's iPhone.

The decision brings to an abrupt end an internal government debate about how much to tell Apple about a newly discovered security vulnerability in one iPhone model.

The FBI decision not to initiate a broad governmental discussion called the Vulnerabilities Equities Process -- in which a number of agencies explore whether to disclose software vulnerabilities to the affected companies -- means Apple will likely be kept in the dark about exactly how the government was able to crack the model 5c iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in December.

That phone was the subject of a high-stakes legal fight between the Justice Department and Apple over whether the government could force the firm to write software that would open the phone for investigators. Apple resisted the directive, saying that to comply could compromise the security of millions of other phones.

That court case came to an abrupt end in March, when the FBI announced that an unidentified third party had shown it a way to bypass the phone's security features.

That led to a new question: Would the government tell Apple about the newfound vulnerability, or keep it secret for possible future use against other 5c models?

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the FBI had decided its agents didn't know enough about how the phone-hacking tool worked to submit it for a vulnerabilities review.

The FBI determined it couldn't submit the phone-cracking method for review because the agency didn't buy the rights "to technical details about how the method functions, or the nature and extent of any vulnerability upon which the method may rely in order to operate," said Amy Hess, executive assistant director of the FBI.

The FBI has notified the Obama administration of its decision, Ms. Hess said.

Apple has said that whatever technique was used to open the 5c phone, it would likely have a short shelf life because the company is constantly upgrading the security of its products.

The FBI's decision is being criticized by privacy advocates, who charge the agency is prioritizing its own investigations over the greater public good of privacy for technology users.

Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 27, 2016 17:18 ET (21:18 GMT)

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