New Policies Could Prevent Law Enforcement From Accessing Mobile Device Data

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey’s recent appearance on CBS News’ 60 Minutes provided a look at the conflict brewing between the FBI and mobile device manufacturers. Comey explains that data on Apple’s iPhone and, in the future, devices running Android can contain data that is inaccessible by law enforcement.

Comey’s concerns include that even with a court order, law enforcement agencies will be unable to access secure, encrypted data — data encrypted by default — on the devices.

Last month, the FBI Director criticized Apple and Google privacy features as “beyond the law,” for adopting new policies that will block police from accessing private data on phones and tablet computers, stating that he is “very concerned” that this could thwart criminal investigations or even bolster the efforts of terrorists.

Apple once maintained the ability to unlock some content on devices for legally binding police requests but will no longer do so for iOS 8, it said in the new privacy policy.

“On devices running iOS 8, your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode,” Apple explains on its website.“Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data. So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.”

The newest Android devices with default encryption will begin to ship next month, as reported by The Washington Post, however because of the number of different versions of Android, it could take years before all devices have the latest security feature.