Select date
Cops May Unlock iPhones Without a Warrant to Beat Apple's New Security Feature
This is part of an ongoing Motherboard series on the proliferation of phone cracking technology, the people behind it, and who is buying it. Follow along here.
Earlier this month, Apple confirmed it was introducing a new security feature that could make hacking iPhones harder, especially for companies such as Grayshift that unlock devices for law enforcement. USB Restricted Mode, as the feature is called, will turn an iPhone’s lightning port into simply a ‘dumb’ charging interface if the phone has not been unlocked within the last hour.
That ticking clock is causing law enforcement officials to at least explore the possibility of using warrantless unlocks to more quickly download data from a device, although they may then obtain a warrant to examine the data itself, according to a document obtained by Motherboard. By leveraging a legal exemption known as exigent circumstances—used in emergencies to avoid the deletion of evidence, or to prevent imminent danger to life—police officers may argue they can unlock and siphon data from an iPhone without first obtaining a warrant.
The news signals how, as Apple and hackers continue their one-upmanship, authorities are exploring more legal workarounds to encryption and locked phones. This is on top of things such as attempting to compel companies to build backdoors into their products, or to force suspects to decrypt devices.
“So long as DOJ continues to argue compelled decryption is an option, any attempt to label locked devices as an emergency situation would be a transparent attempt to circumvent the Fourth Amendment,” Jake Laperruque, senior counsel at The Constitution Project, at the Project on Government Oversight, told Motherboard in an email. The Project on Government Oversight is a non-profit that works to expose government fraud, waste, and abuse.
Motherboard obtained an email sent by a law enforcement official with a local police department in California to a private community of forensic experts discussing USB Restricted Mode and possible legal bypasses to the issue.
