From more than 50% of all mobile devices investigated by the FBI from October 2016 till September 2017, could no data be retrieved due to the encryption. FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted during a police conference in Philadelphia that more than 6900 devices couldn't be accessed by the secret service.
“To put it mildly, this is a huge, huge problem,” Wray said. “It impacts investigations across the board — narcotics, human trafficking, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, gangs, organized crime, child exploitation.”
According to the FBI Director there has to be some balance between encryption and the tools needed to keep the public safe.
Wray also stated that it's important that the American Congress has to reauthorize an intelligence surveillance law that expires by the end of this year, according to the Associated Press. The law allows the government to collect information about militants, people suspected of cybercrimes or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other foreign targets outside the United States
“If it doesn’t get renewed or reauthorized, essentially in the form that it already is, we’re about to get another blind spot,” Wray said.
