Hacking Phones: How Law Enforcement Is Saving Privacy

It’s no longer true that society must choose to either weaken everybody’s privacy or let criminals run rampant.

As a staunch privacy advocate, I am excited that law enforcement now has access to tools to decrypt locked smartphones! But, wait! Isn’t that the opposite of privacy? Well, no, if you consider the bigger picture.

There is a battle raging right now with many governments wanting to broadly undermine privacy by weakening allowable algorithms so they can decrypt communication messages over networks and undermine device protections. The primary justification for this has been to track down terrorists and prosecute criminals. Governments contend that without any other means, bad people would be able to communicate and do illicit activities without law enforcement able to gather necessary evidence. The downside is that all people, including the innocent, would be surrendering their privacy and greatly weakening the security of everyday information.

Many people, including political representatives, are openly maneuvering to enact such laws, which, in my opinion, would weaken everybody’s privacy because all communications could remotely be captured, analyzed, and stored. Additionally, purposely weakening encryption algorithms would undermine the necessary digital security controls that protect our…