FBI eyes larger battle over encryption after Apple feud
After buying a software tool to access a dead terrorist’s encrypted iPhone, the FBI is exploring how to make broader use of the hack while bracing for a larger battle involving encrypted text messages, emails and other data, Director James Comey said.
The tool used to get into the phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who with his wife carried out a deadly December attack in San Bernardino, could “in theory be used in any case where there’s a court order” to access data on an iPhone 5c running Apple’s iOS 9 operating system, Comey told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.
Software applications and other services that encrypt texts, emails and other information in transit over the Internet — known as “data in motion” — are “hugely significant,” especially for national security investigations, Comey said.
WhatsApp has been embroiled in a legal dispute in Brazil, with judges twice in the last six months temporarily ordering the service blocked for failing to turn over data in response to court orders.
State and local law enforcement agencies say they have hundreds of encrypted iPhones that they could use the FBI’s help getting into.
From October 2015 to March of this year, New York City police have been locked out of 67 Apple devices lawfully seized during investigations into 44 violent crimes, including murders, rapes and the shootings of two officers, Thomas Galati, chief of the New York City Police Department’s intelligence bureau, told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee last month.