Obama administration won’t seek encryption-backdoor legislation

(credit: Brookings Institute)

FBI Director James Comey told a congressional panel that the Obama administration won't ask Congress for legislation requiring the tech sector to install backdoors into their products so the authorities can access encrypted data.

Comey said the administration for now will continue lobbying private industry to create backdoors to allow the authorities to open up locked devices to investigate criminal cases and terrorism.

"The administration has decided not to seek a legislative remedy now, but it makes sense to continue the conversations with industry," Comey told a Senate panel of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday.

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