FBI chief calls for public-private detente on encryption

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — In a broad appeal for greater cooperation with the security community in the private sector, FBI Director Christopher Wray blasted the prevalence of unbreakable encryption, calling investigators’ inability to access the contents of thousands of devices “a major public safety issue.”

In fiscal 2017, FBI investigators were stymied in their attempts to obtain the contents of 7,775 devices involved in investigations in which a judge had authorized access, Wray said in a keynote address here at Boston College’s second annual cybersecurity summit on Wednesday.