Apple last week touted that with release of its latest operating system iOS8, it no longer could bypass the smartphone user passwords.
“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,” Apple said.
Google quickly followed suit, saying it already had such technology in phones running its Android operating system, but that “as part of our next Android release, encryption will be enabled by default out of the box, so you won’t even have to think about turning it on.”
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey told reporters Thursday that the agency is talking to both companies to raise concerns that their privacy efforts could hinder criminal investigations.
Comey said that he was “very concerned” that the companies were “marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves above the law.”
