February 02, 2026

Security and the News: Discussion about Compelled Decryption and the Constitution

Two weeks ago, the FBI searched a Washington Post reporter’s home and compelled her to unlock Signal messages on her laptop via TouchID. Historically, the US 5th Amendment (specifically protections against self-incrimination, i.e., “pleading the fifth”) has protected people from being compelled to provide their passwords, but this has generally not applied to biometric authentication methods like fingerprints and FaceID.  In this discussion, Julia will provide some background on the legal precedent for compelled decryption (all the way back to 1807!) and then we will discuss if the security research community ought to react, and if so, how.