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FBI Used Cooperative Suspect's Face to Unlock His iPhone

posted by chromas on Monday October 01 2018, @11:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the volume+power dept.

takyon writes:

The FBI used a suspect's face to unlock his iPhone in Ohio case

When Apple debuted Face ID with the iPhone X last year, it raised an interesting legal question: can you be compelled to unlock your phone by looking at it? In an apparent first, Forbes reports that the FBI got a suspect to unlock his phone during a raid in August.

In August, the FBI raided the home of Grant Michalski, looking for evidence that he had sent or received child pornography. They were armed with a search warrant [warning: this documentation contains explicit descriptions of sexual abuse] which allowed them to search Michalski's computer for evidence, and during the raid, agents recovered his iPhone X.

The agents who found the iPhone asked Michalski to unlock the device via Face ID, which he did. They "placed the [phone] into airplane mode and examined it by looking through the files and folders manually and documenting the findings with pictures."

The facial unlocking was voluntary (or so they claim), and the Columbus Police and FBI have devices capable of bypassing the phone's passcode protection. So much for security.

Also at AppleInsider.

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  • (Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Monday October 01 2018, @02:15PM (1 child)

    by pkrasimirov (3358) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 01 2018, @02:15PM (#742303)

    Yes, the headline does not match the FBI report. From the linked document https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4951289-iPhone-X-Face-ID-Search-in-Ohio.html [documentcloud.org] page 12:

    G M was at the residence at the time that it was executed, and, pursuant to authorization provided in the search warant, was required by law enforcement to place his face in front of an iPhone X that was found on M's person when the search warrant was executed.

    FBI already had his emails from Google and Craigslist so it can be argued if this falls under self-incriminating. Maybe I'm having the wrong idea of FBI but I don't imagine them politely asking a proven pedo for cooperation using words.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Monday October 01 2018, @05:18PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday October 01 2018, @05:18PM (#742366)

    > Maybe I'm having the wrong idea of FBI but I don't imagine them politely asking a proven pedo for cooperation using words.

    Yes, you indeed do have the wrong idea.
    Most cops do their job by the book, because they don't want to be the one known to have let a pedo or murderer walk free by not doing the job right.

    Yes, there are stupid angry power-tripping cops, way too many of them. But the US is supposed to be a civilized place, not a "Gestapo will torture you for kicks" secret-police state. The US needs a shrink, instead of blowing off your friends.