Vivek Krishnamurthy on Encryption and Law Enforcement

The Boston Globe published Clinical Instructor Vivek Krishnamurthy’s letter to the editor, responding to a call by Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley for a ban on digital devices with encryption. Conley expressed his view before the House Committee on Oversight and Government at the end of April, arguing that “companies have encrypted their products in a way that puts the information they contain beyond the reach of law enforcement investigations.” In his letter, Vivek calls Conley’s view “dangerously misguided” and notes that, “[i]f Apple and Google weaken their encryption for law enforcement, they’d be undermining the protections that keep foreign governments from spying on a Cabinet member’s smartphone, or cybercriminals from stealing health records from a doctor’s iPad.”