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Report: US police departments around the country now able to unlock encrypted iPhones

As the privacy debate surrounding technology continues to make its rounds in recent news, Apple’s stance on privacy and security hasn’t changed, especially when it involves law enforcement.

FBI Director Christopher Wray says that it is “increasingly unable to access” data stored on encrypted devices. However, Motherboard reports that this is completely false.

The report states that local police forces and federal agencies from all across the country have been able to purchase relatively cheap tools that enables them to unlock up-to-date iPhones and bypass all encryption.

The news makes some iPhone owners uneasy as some law enforcement are clearly lying to the public, stating that they are still looking for ways to get into newer iPhones with the latest iOS releases.

“It demonstrates that even state and local police do have access to this data in many situations,” Matthew Green, an assistant professor and cryptographer at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, told Motherboard in a Twitter message. “This seems to contradict what the FBI is saying about their inability to access these phones.”

This all leads back to one specific loophole, the GrayKey, made by Grayshift. More information about this device can be found here.


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