479
Cops can force suspect to unlock phone with thumbprint, US court rules
(arstechnica.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
479 points (98.6% liked)
News
35714 readers
633 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
FYI for iPhone users if you run into the Fuzz and you need to lock it out of biometrics, hit the lock button five times. This will start the emergency call count down but once canceled the iPhone can only be opened via passcode. Caveat, you need to have the five press to call turned on in Settings>Emergency SOS>Call with 5 Button presses
On my Android I can scan the wrong finger a few times and it'll ask for my pin instead. I'm pretty sure rebooting would do the same but I'm too lazy to try that right now.
However, please make sure you try this yourself for your specific phone and Android version before relying on it.
Reboot has forced PIN/Pass for I think the entirety of Androids existence, but if not then for sure long enough that the phones that didn't don't work anymore as phones.
Rebooted android requires pin/pass only because you are essentially un-encrypting the phone. So if you use android and get in a mess with the police, shut down your phone immediately. It's been this way for a long time, but it's been far too long since 1.0-4.0 that I can't remember.
It might have changed. When I restart my phone it just goes to the pattern unlock screen.
Pattern unlock is effectively the same as a pin, just without numbers. You can use the pattern unlock without the PIN code. But fingerprint unlock is a secondary unlock type on top of the primary one which is a PIN code. And no, they haven't changed it, if you reboot the phone, a pin code is required first in order for it to boot up.
Does pattern unlock hold up against cops though? I don't think I've seen it said that it does. But I'm not really knowledgeable about it.
Be careful. If they've ordered you to use your fingerprint to unlock the phone, and you "accidentally" do it wrong five times in a row to cause the device to lock, that may be considered disobeying an order.
You would want to lock the phone down before they've ordered you to do this.
idk maybe its just my phone (I'm on graphene os, a privacy and security focused ROM) but I have an option for "lockdown mode" which disables biometrics
You can also just hold the power and volume up buttons. You don’t actually have to swipe to power off the phone. Just holding those buttons long enough for the “Swipe to power off” to appear on screen will also lock out biometrics and force a PIN.
Holy shit it worked. That’s great advice.
You don't need anything turned on in settings, emergency sos. My iphone does the lock on 5 presses without those options on.
For Android there's a literal "lockdown mode" button on the lock screen that does this, if you push it you can only use pattern or PIN for the next unlock.
this might count as destroying evidence
It can't be, because nothing is destroyed
Assuming the wording of a law exists to protect you was your first mistake
If you haven't locked the device down by the time they have instructed you to unlock it, doing then might be considered obstruction, but until they compel you to do it, you can do whatever you like with the phone.
As for destruction of evidence, it certainly wouldn't be that, but even if it could be, it would kind of depend on them proving intent because you're not under arrest yet or charged with anything. They would have to prove that you were aware of an impending investigation when you made the choice to dispose of evidence.