Feb 19 Reuters - The legal showdown over US demands that Apple Inc unlock an iPhone used by San Bernardino shooter Rizwan Farook might have been avoided if his employer, which owns the device, had equipped it with special mobile phone software it issues to many workers.
San Bernardino County, which employed Farook as an environmental health inspector, requires some of its workers to install mobile-device management software made by Silicon Valley-based MobileIron Inc on government-issued phones, according to county spokesman David Wert.
That software is designed to secure corporate data.
It also allows information technology departments to remotely unlock phones, even without assistance of the phone's users or access to the password needed to open the phone and unscramble the data.
"If that particular iPhone was using MobileIron, the county's IT department could unlock it," MobileIron vice-president Ojas Rege told Reuters.
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The problem is that the MobileIron software was not installed on Farook's phone because his department did not use it.
If it had been, the high-stakes legal battle that has pitted Apple and much of the technology industry against the US government could have been avoided altogether.
