US President Barack Obama says he supports law enforcement efforts to gain access to protected information from electronic devices.
Speaking in Austin, Texas, on Friday, Obama urged tech companies to build a safe encryption key to assist in law enforcement investigations.
“There has to be some concession to the need to be able to get into that information somehow,” he said.
“If technologically, it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there’s no key, there’s no door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer? How do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot?”
The US president warned that a failure could see stringent measures by Congress.
He urged encryption advocates avoiding taking an absolutist stance, and warned against “fetishizing our phones above every other value.”
“We make compromises all the time,” Obama said, pointing to invasive airport security measures, police search powers and…