Lee Rigby's family criticise Apple policy

Fusilier Lee Rigby

The family of Fusilier Lee Rigby, who was murdered by extremists in 2013, has criticised Apple for opposing a court order.

On Wednesday, Apple said modifying its software to help the FBI access data on San Bernardino gunman Syed Rizwan Farook's device would be "dangerous".

Mr Rigby's uncle, Ray McClure, said the company was "protecting a murderer's privacy at the cost of public safety".

However, a number of tech leaders and privacy advocates have backed Apple. They include Google's chief executive Sundar Pichai who tweeted that requiring companies to enable the hacking of their customer devices "could be a troubling precedent".

Apple has not indicated whether fulfilling the court order would be physically possible. In an open letter on Wednesday, Tim Cook said Apple did cooperate with law enforcement.

"When the FBI has requested data that's in our possession, we have provided it," he wrote.

"We have also made Apple engineers available to advise the FBI... we have worked hard to support the government's efforts to solve this horrible crime. We have no sympathy for terrorists."