Not possible to pull out data from new iPhones, Apple tells US judge

Apple Inc has told a US judge that data stored on a locked iPhone was ''impossible'' to access as the  devices used its latest operating system, though the company had the ''technical ability'' to help law enforcement agencies unlock older phones.

Apple stated its position in a brief filed late Monday, after a federal judge in Brooklyn, New York, called on Apple to weigh in, as he considered a US justice department request to force the company to help authorities access a seized iPhone during an investigation.

Apple replied in court papers that for the 90 per cent of its devices running iOS 8 or higher, complying with the justice department request ''would be impossible to perform'' after it had implemented strengthened encryption measures.

The devices come with a feature that locks out anyone without the device's passcode from the data, including Apple itself.

The feature was implemented in 2014 amid heightened privacy concerns following leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about NSA surveillance programs.

Apple told judge James Orenstein it could access the 10 per cent of its devices that continued to use older systems, including the one at issue in the case, though it urged the judge to not require it to comply with the justice department's request.

''Forcing Apple to extract data in this case, absent clear legal authority to do so, could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand,'' Apple's lawyers wrote.

Ever since iOS 8, Apple has been reminding enforcement that it could not pull data off locked iPhones.

According to commentators, Apple was in a way  confirming what was already know - there was no backdoor built into iOS, which meant in theory no-one could pull data off an iPhone running iOS 8 or later-as the information was protected by encryption that was tied to the user's PIN.

According to commentators, it was worth pointing out, however, that just because Apple said extracting data from a locked iPhone was "impossible", did not make it so.

When iOS and its improved security first came out, security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski, in a blog, showed how some information continued to be in the government's grasp, and nothing much had changed.