Gartner Inc. analyst Avivah Litan has weighed in to ongoing kerfuffle over Apple’s refusal to hack that iPhone for the FBI, saying that authorities should “stop bullying Apple”.

Writing in the Gartner blog, Litan argues that the iPhone in question is unlikely to have any evidence locked away inside it because San Bernardino killer Syed Farook primarily used it for work, and is already known to have destroyed two private phones he used.

Litan also says the FBI would be better off trying to analyze phone record metadata from Farook’s carrier providers, which she says would likely yield much better intelligence than anything they’d find in the iPhone. Litan argues that Farook would have probably kept the iPhone on his person most of the time, and that this would allow the FBI to trace his movements in the build up to his attacks. Furthermore, the carrier’s metadata from all three phones would also reveal who his contacts are, she said.

She went on to say that modern day intelligence gathering is basically no different to data science, and it’s the FBI’s responsibility to get with the times.

“Here’s how my colleague summed it up,” she writes. “’the daily challenge of the modern intelligence officer is to link data coming from human intelligence, signal intelligence, visual intelligence, financial intelligence, cyber intelligence… in part to make up for gaps that encrypted data communications and lack of associated metadata creates’.”

She adds that there’s “plenty of data” out there for the FBI to be getting on with.

“I wish they would stop bullying Apple and the technology industry around and spend their time and energy instead on figuring out how to rise to the challenge,” she concluded.

Litan’s comments will most likely be welcome by Apple and other tech companies that have supported its stance, but they’re unlikely to change the FBI’s stance that Apple should help it to unlock that iPhone.

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