The FBI says its decision not to share with a special government panel the technique used to open a San Bernadino, California, attacker’s locked Apple iPhone doesn’t mean the agency will withhold it from local law enforcement officials in pending criminal cases.

East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III has hopes of getting access to the technique to open the locked iPhone of slain Baton Rouge mother Brittney Mills.

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Riana Pfefferkorn, a cryptography fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, noted that the FBI signed similar agreements with a third party to use so-called “Stingray” technology, which, in effect, impersonates a cellphone tower to pick up phone calls.

She said such third party outsourcing deals raise issues.

“You know it (outsourcing) might end up tying the government’s hands when they obtain tools that will end up being potentially limited in their use to the extent that they are not able to meet federal or state court evidentiary standards for authenticating the tools and how they work,” Pfefferkorn said.

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