Massachusetts Judge Granted Warrant to Unlock Suspects iPhone With Touch ID
4th May 2019
For those who haven’t been paying attention, the issue is the legal status of phone information. Typically phone information is considered to fall under the ‘papers and effects’ of the Fourth Amendment, requiring a search warrant; but some courts have ruled that the passcode, being information in the brain, come under the ‘self-incrimination’ shield of the Fifth Amendment. So, faced with a locked phone, LEOs can get information out of the phone if they have a warrant and if they figure out a way to do so, but what they can’t do is force the owner to cough up the passcode. Needless today, LEOs are whining about this a lot (as they do).