Police agencies will force users to unlock their smartphones
According to cyber forensics course specialists, a U.S. judge granted permission to a police agency to force some users to put their fingers in the fingerprint reader of some iPhone devices to try to unlock them.
Judge Judith Dein, of Massachusetts, granted
the agents of the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Weapons and Explosives (ATF)
permission to force Robert Brito-Pina, suspected of arms trafficking, to place
his fingerprints
on devices seized by the law enforcement agency.
The order was issued on April 18th and is
scheduled to run on May 2. ATF agents may force the suspect to attempt to
unlock the seized devices at his home; even other people who live there may be
forced to put their fingers on the devices.
According to the cyber forensics course experts,
this order is elaborated in a sufficiently specific way so that the agents
could analyze each one of the fingers of the suspect and how to treat the
seized devices.
One of the agents made some statements as to
why the Agency considered it necessary to obtain this permit. According to ATF,
traffickers frequently use intelligent devices for the illegal purchase and
sale of weapons; In addition, the Agency considers that, due to the type of
contracts under which these types of devices are acquired, many members of
criminal groups opt to retain them for a long time.
In other words, the agency believes that the
defendant’s mobile phone could store a considerable amount of evidence; it is
even probable that Brito-Pena is suspected of this offense because of evidence
collected in a similar way in other cases, such as SMS messages or locations
registered on a device. The agency even claims that it has evidence of another
suspect calling Brito-Pena.
Cyber forensics course specialists from the
International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) mention that, although U.S.
law protects the integrity of user devices in cases like this (a manufacturer
cannot be forced to unlock a device), police agencies seem to have found a way
out of this problem by differentiating between the locked device and the users’
fingerprints.
It seems that the U.S. justice system has
decided to treat both things as completely different for law enforcement,
although this discussion is not over yet.
Gloss