Comment by WillPostForFood
4 years ago
Their response to any such demands would be (and has been) "we don't have the capability to do what you're asking".
No judge is going to burden them to spend their own dime to build a massive new feature like this and deploy it to every phone out there to comply with a demand arising from a prosecutor of an individual case.
Government does not care one bit about how much it costs or if it is even possible. They demand the data with an ultimatum: deliver it as we requested by our deadline or we send in our IT people to take it. Sorry (not) if it takes your whole company down while we plugin in our own servers in your datacenter to take your data.
Doesn't work if the data of interest is not there for the taking. And a judge will not compel beyond what they consider reasonable. Having the feature already in place dramatically shifts the bar.