The Vulnerabilities Equities Program (VEP) initiative was brought up in order to balance the United States law enforcement's desire to hack into devices while keeping them safe from criminals. It sounds like a good idea but has not yet yielded any useful information to companies with regard to major security flaws. On April 14, FBI disclosed a security flaw to Apple for the first time.

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As per Gizmodo, FBI disclosed the security information to Apple under the terms of the VEP. This security flaw unfortunately affected only the older iOS and OS X versions. It was patched later in iOS 9 and OS X El Captain. An executive of Apple informed Reuters that the disclosure of this flaw did not help change the company's perception of the White House process; the perception that its process is much less effective than it is being claimed.

FBI actually wanted Apple's help in investigating terrorist attacks. After the shootings at San Bernardino, FBI had seized shooter Syed Rizwan Farook's iPhone, and it had the warrant to dig the phone's contents. One of California's district courts sent an order to the FBI asking help from Apple for cracking Farook's passcode. The judge asked Apple to create new software which is a custom, terrorist-phone-specific iOS software version, but the company is worried that if it creates such software for the FBI, the security measures will be bypassed.

FBI wants to get around crucial privacy features on iOS9, but many people's privacy will be at stake. If Apple complies with this order, it will write its own malware, creating a great tool to hack its older devices. It will also affect all those who use technology for any kind of communication.

So this has been a kind of effort by the FBI pretending to care about the security of consumers.