Per a report from Upturn, your phone may not nearly be as protected from law enforcement as you might think. At least 2,000 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states have the tools to get into locked, encrypted phones and extract data.
Law enforcement is using those tools far more than was previously believed for a wide range of cases, from homicides and rapes to drugs and shoplifting.
The tools commonly come from an Atlanta based Grayshift or Israeli based Cellebrite, with costs between $9 and 18 thousand and annual maintenance.
As any of us in technology knows, the tech is never perfect. Expecting absolute security via the technology alone was never the solution.
It’s regulation and oversight that matter here to ensure law enforcement acts properly. Warrants exist for a reason. Hackers gonna hack, and that’s not my worry here. My worry is overzealous leveraging by law enforcement.
You care because as privacy becomes more of a debate on the regulatory front, this will factor into the way you do data management going forward. That’s why we track this.
Source: New York Times