WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defended its hiring of a third party to break into an iPhone used by a gunman in last year’s San Bernardino mass shooting, telling some skeptical lawmakers on Tuesday that it needed to join with partners in the rarefied world of for-profit hackers as technology companies increasingly resist their demands for consumer information.
FBI’s Executive Assistant Director for Science and Technology Amy Hess made the comments at a hearing by members of Congress, who are debating potential legislation on encryption. The lawmakers gathered law enforcement authorities and Silicon Valley company executives to discuss the issue, which has divided technology companies and officials in recent months and spurred a debate over privacy and security.
The hearing follows a recent standoff between the FBI and Apple over a court order to force the company to help unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers. Apple opposed the order, citing harm to the privacy of its users. The FBI later dropped its demand for Apple’s help when it found a third-party alternative to hack the device.
Yet that has done little to quell the controversy. The encryption debate has continued with new hearings, proposed legislation and other cases that involve locked iPhones and law enforcement demands that the devices be opened to aid investigations.
In Tuesday’s hearing, Hess did not provide details on how the FBI ultimately gained access to the San Bernardino iPhone but said the agency had come to rely on private sector partners to keep up with changes in technology. She said that there was no one-stop solution and that the agency generally should not use third parties to hack into systems but lacks the expertise to break past encryption.
The FBI said there has been an increase in the number of devices it has acquired through investigations but was unable to gain access to because of encryption. Hess said that since October, 13 per cent of the devices obtained by the FBI were impenetrable by the agency.
Tech companies, which have largely banded together in support of Apple’s pro-encryption position, are lobbying against a draft bill that would require tech companies to decrypt data if requested by a court. City and state law enforcement officials support the draft bill, but it faces strong opposition from many in the Congress.
Orginally published in the International New York Times newspaper