Standing Up with Apple to Fight for Everyone’s Security

Mozilla today is joining a coalition of technology companies, including Google, Nest Labs, Facebook, WhatsApp, Evernote, Snapchat and Microsoft, in filing an amicus brief in support of Apple's position in its ongoing dispute with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In our brief we are urging the district court not to force Apple to undo its own security protections to break into an iPhone.

Ultimately, companies like Mozilla are constantly striving to build more secure products. We make decisions every single day intended to protect our users. But those decisions affect all our users, which means Mozilla cannot weaken security for one user without effectively weakening it for everybody else. And it also means we cannot stand by as other companies are required to do so.

We are filing the amicus brief to help the court understand why it is dangerous to force technology companies to actively undermine their own security features. Opposing the FBI order is about taking a stand for public safety. It is the responsibility of technology companies to build as strong a product as possible to protect all users. We've already seen what weak security can do. We think users want more security, not less security. Tech companies should aspire to build "unhackable" products. With this precedent, we could all be told not to build secure products in the first place.

Security is critical to the continued evolution and growth of the Internet. It's part of our mission to safeguard the Web, we consider it part of our job to take a stand on issues that threaten the health of the Internet.