Father begs Apple to unlock dead son’s iPhone
ROME: A grieving father in Italy has written to Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook to beg him to unblock his dead son’s iPhone so he can retrieve the photographs stored.
If the US tech giant fails, he said he will turn to the elite of the hacking world — Apple’s nemesis in the San Bernardino case, which saw the FBI turn to outside help after it failed to force the Silicon valley company to crack a killer’s iPhone.
“Don’t deny me the memories of my son,” architect Leonardo Fabbretti wrote in an email sent to Cook and the head of the company’s software department, following repeated failed attempts to access the teenager’s device.
Dama was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2013 after a skiing accident and died in September at the age of 13.
“I cannot give up. Having lost my Dama, I will fight to have the last two months of photos, thoughts and words which are held hostage in his phone,” he said in the letter, sent on March 21.
“I had given my son an iPhone 6 nearly nine months before his death, which he used all the time. He wanted me to have access, he added my fingerprint ID,” Fabbretti told AFP on Thursday.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work if the phone is turned off and on again,” he said.
Fabbretti contacted Apple Europe five months ago, but its technical team said it had been unable to open the locked phone. “I think what’s happened should make you think about the privacy policy adopted by your company. Although I share your philosophy in general, I think Apple should offer solutions for exceptional cases like mine,” he said in the letter.