With all the news surrounding the US Government and Apple's reluctance to disclose security details, regardless the implications these actions would hold, the tech sector is facing an ethical meltdown. The real world is catching up with technology and, despite all the promises it can make for the future, people must also accept that technological advancements will always have human consequences.
But with the rise of the internet, and companies’ ability to become not just transnational but supranational, active everywhere yet arguing that their responsibilities belong nowhere, attitudes have changed. Apple’s row with the FBI over access to a locked iPhone that belonged to the employer of one of the San Bernardino killers is just the latest example of technology businesses discovering that nothing they now do is without consequences. Apple has been excoriated by presidential candidates, and backed into the tightest of corners by the FBI: the moral case for refusing to hack into a terrorist’s phone is hard to make – particularly in the US over an Isis-inspired attack during an election year.
