“To put it lightly, this is a huge, huge problem,” Wray said. “It changes investigations across the board drugs, human trafficking, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, gangs, associated crime, child exploitation.”
Encryption on machines renders data unclear without a key, meaning communications sent through encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp are available only through the device which is usually protected by a phrase or biometric data like a fingerprint.
Wray’s remarks will stoke the debate on encryption that gained public attention after the 2015 San Bernardino, California, shooting.
FBI agents were incapable to view data on an iPhone used by one of the shooters, which may have been important in the investigation.
Apple refused a court order to unlock the phone, saying that to do so would set a “serious precedent.” The FBI eventually accepted assistance from a startup to bypass the encryption of the iPhone 5C.
“We have great admiration for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their plans are good,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement at the time. “Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. administration has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we deem too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor for the iPhone.”
Senior managers at Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter issued a joint statement earlier this year in reply to U.K. Home Secretary Amber Rudd calling for help in terrorism investigations, saying they would support in the probes to the best of their ability but would not offer permits on encryption.
“Our companies are dedicated to making our platforms a hostile space for those who seek to do wrong and we have been working on this issue for several years,” the comment read. “We share the government’s delegation to ensuring terrorists do not have a voice online.”
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