Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 01 2018, @08:01PM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 01 2018, @08:01PM (#742444) Journal

    I'm not a real believer in this argument, but it should be mentioned.

    Theory is, if there weren't people out there seeking, and oftentimes willing to pay for, CP, the producers wouldn't be producing it. Thus - possessions contributes to actual child sexual abuse.

    In my limited research, monetary profit is at best a tertiary concern for most producers of CP. One CP ring was discovered in which CP was traded like-for-like. The only way to "buy" the stuff, was to produce and trade your own stuff. And . . . I suppose that particular CP ring supports the theory I've already mentioned.

    Whatever theory you might work with, I'm certain that a lot of child porn is not porn at all. If a naked child runs through the room when a photo is snapped, that child's bare buttocks constitute child porn in the eyes of some law enforcement. It doesn't matter how, or why, that bare-assed child managed to run into the room at the wrong(?) moment - the bare ass is enough to arrest and investigate.

      https://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2009/09/bath-photos-wal-mart-what-is-child-pornography.html [findlaw.com]

    it appears that both Wal-Mart and Arizona state investigators may have allowed subjective (and some might say puritanically paranoid) impressions of family photos to completely disrupt the lives of the Demaree parents and children.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @02:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @02:09AM (#742603)

    Theory is, if there weren't people out there seeking, and oftentimes willing to pay for, CP, the producers wouldn't be producing it. Thus - possessions contributes to actual child sexual abuse.

    The counterargument is that most of the CP is freely available, so you could just ban paying for it (through any means) and producing it.

    Another counterargument is that it's still the fault of the producers, and that they don't have to produce CP to meet the demand. It's still entirely on them.

    What's funny is that many organizations like the FBI argue that CP harms victims each time it is looked at, so it's harmful even if it was not paid for at all. Then, the FBI hosts CP itself on honeypot websites. The hypocrisy is both hilarious and sad.