We’ve learned that the FBI has been misinforming Congress and the public as part of its call for backdoor access to encrypted devices. For months, the Bureau has claimed that encryption prevented it from legally searching the contents of nearly 7,800 devices in 2017, but today the Washington Post reports that the actual number is far lower due to "programming errors" by the FBI.
Frankly, we’re not surprised. FBI Director Christopher Wray and others argue that law enforcement needs some sort of backdoor “exceptional access” in order to deal with the increased adoption of encryption, particularly on mobile devices. And the 7,775 supposedly unhackable phones encountered by the FBI in 2017 have been central to Wray’s claim that their investigations are “Going Dark.” But the scope of this problem is called into doubt by services offered by third-party vendors like Cellebrite and Grayshift, which can reportedly bypass encryption on even the newest phones. The Bureau’s credibility on this issue was also undercut by a recent DOJ Office of the Inspector General report, which found that internal failures of communication caused the government to make false statements about its need for Apple to assist in unlocking a seized iPhone as part of the San Bernardino case.
Given the availability of these third-party solutions, we’ve questioned how and why the FBI finds itself thwarted by so many locked phones. That’s why last week, EFF submitted a FOIA request for records related to Wray’s talking points about the 7,800 unhackable phones and the FBI’s use of outside vendors to bypass encryption.
The stakes here are high. Imposing an exceptional access mandate on encryption providers would be extraordinarily dangerous from a security perspective, but the government has never provided details about the scope of the supposed Going Dark problem. The latest revision to Director Wray’s favorite talking point demonstrates that the case for legislation is even weaker than we thought. We hope that the government is suitably forthcoming to our FOIA request so that we can get to the bottom of this issue.
