For the first time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has unlocked a suspect's iPhone X using Face ID. The US agency forced Grant Michalski, an Ohio resident accused of downloading and possessing child pornography, to unlock his iPhone X on August 10.
It should be noted that the FBI had the necessary search warrant to compel Michalski to unlock his phone.
After unlocking the phone, FBI Special Agent David Knight discovered conversations on the Kik chat-messenger that involved child abuse. Michalski had spoken to a police officer posing as a father who was interested in having sex with children. He had also exchanged emails with another suspect (William Weekley) about having sex with minors.
Despite unlocking Michalski's phone, Knight was unable to gather more information due to a new iOS feature. This feature requires you to enter a password to transfer the data to one computer.
Under US law, suspects are not required to reveal passwords, but there is no law on facial and fingerprint data. So due to the vagueness of the law, authorities can ask anyone to unlock their device using biometric data.
The warrant we mentioned above did not allow Knight to ask him code access to examine the data. However, the Columbus Police Department and the Ohio State Bureau of Investigation were able to unlock the device with special tools.
Companies like Grayshift and Cellebrite have long had services for accessing locked iPhones. Both companies have contracts with various US government agencies.
Apple and US authorities appear to have been playing a game of cat and mouse since 2016, when the Cupertino company refused to unlock a suspect's phone. The company later rolled out a feature in iOS 11 that allowed users to temporarily disable touchID by pressing the volume up button five times. Recently, someone made yet another one shortcut in iOS 12 to automatically disable the iPhone's camera in the event of a police search.
If you are interested in this shortcut you can download it from here.
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