For the same reason the TSA exists: theater. The TSA performs security theater, where they take the harder route, yet fail to even detect, let alone stop 95%+

For the same reason the TSA exists: theater. The TSA performs security theater, where they take the harder route, yet fail to even detect, let alone stop 95%+ of yesterday's threats, to say nothing of today's or tomorrow's threats: - https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8701741/tsa-screenings-homeland-security-red-teams-95-percent-failure https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8701741/tsa-screenings-hom... Apple performs privacy theater, where they take the harder route, yet extensively log user data and share it with federal intelligence agencies: - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants... As for the deeper why: it's more important to the US government for passengers to feel safe than it is for passengers to actually be truly safe. Likewise, it's more profitable for Apple to make its customers feel their data is private than it is for Apple to make their customers data actually be truly private. Apple is not privacy-preserving company. Apple is marketed as a privacy-preserving company.