Apple has declared victory in its battle against the FBI, after the government announced it had found a way into the San Bernardino killer’s iPhone that did not require the manufacturer’s help.

The company said in a statement: “From the beginning, we objected to the FBI’s demand that Apple build a backdoor into the iPhone because we believed it was wrong and would set a dangerous precedent. As a result of the government’s dismissal, neither of these occurred. This case should never have been brought.”

The FBI has refused to disclose how it has extracted the desired information from the iPhone, given by San Bernardino county to its employee Syed Farook, who murdered 14 people with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, in December 2015. But by doing so without Apple’s help, the FBI has undercut its previous claims that there was no way to decrypt the iPhone without cooperation from the firm.

In its statement, Apple fought back against the government’s framing of the issue as one of national security conflicting with personal privacy. It said: “We will continue to help law enforcement with their investigations, as we have done all along, and we will continue to increase the security of our products as the threats and attacks on our data become more frequent and more sophisticated.

“Apple believes deeply that people in the United States and around the world deserve data protection, security and privacy. Sacrificing one for the other only puts people and countries at greater risk.”

But the company, based in Cupertino, California, acknowledges that the FBI’s withdrawal is likely to be only the end of a battle, not victory in the longer war. “This case raised issues which deserve a national conversation about our civil liberties, and our collective security and privacy. Apple remains committed to participating in that discussion.”

Despite a victory last month in the courts over a similar case in New York, there is no shortage of other potential test cases, and the FBI is able to pick its battlegrounds at will.