Back in September, the FBI director James B. Comey expressed his dissatisfaction with Apple and Google’s new encryption method. For those who might have missed our coverage, basically Apple and Google will no longer hold the key to your phone. This means that if your phone is locked with a passcode, only you are able to unlock it.
This prevents law enforcement agencies such as the FBI from getting a warrant and asking Apple and Google to unlock it remotely from their end. This is great for user privacy, but Comey seems to think that it could hinder law enforcement efforts, so much so that he has implied that new regulations could be put into play to ensure a way around the new encryption method.
In a speech at the Brookings Institution, Comey was quoted as saying, “Perhaps it’s time to suggest that the post-Snowden pendulum has swung too far in one direction — in a direction of fear and mistrust,” and indicated that there is a need for a regulatory or legislative fix that will hold all communications companies to the same standard.
This is “so that those of us in law enforcement, national security and public safety can continue to do the job you have entrusted us to do, in the way you would want us to.” Comey clarified that he was only speaking on behalf of the FBI, but what do you guys think?