New York Assemblyman Matthew Titone wants to prohibit the sale of encrypted smartphones in the state of New York. This comes after New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance spoke out about banning encryption, with the goal of aiding law enforcement.

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Titone's bill states that any smartphone manufactured in 2016 must be able to be decrypted and unlocked by the manufacturer, or else face a huge fine. This means that Apple or Google phones that offer default encryption would be essentially illegal to sell in New York. Default encryption means that only a person with the phone's password can access what it stores (so the manufacturer can't even unlock it), which prevents law enforcement from obtaining information through the manufacturer without a search warrant. TechDirt notes that the bill's wording doesn't exactly ban encryption—nothing is preventing users from buying out of state—though it does "accomplish the same thing without having to require backdoors or forbid manufacturers from offering default encryption in the other 49 states."Although, as TechDirt reports, the bill does "press all of the right buttons" by declaring the bill an act of protection against criminals and terrorists, it probably won't pass. Something tells me that no one wants to be the person who tells Apple that none of its smartphones can be sold in New York.

Nicole is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter