For the first time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 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 opening the phone, FBI Special Agent David Knight found out talks in the Kik chat-messenger that involved the abuse of minors. 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 λόγω μιας νέας δυνατότητας του iOS. Η λειτουργία αυτή απαιτεί την εισtreatment of a password to transfer the data to a 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 request the password 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 button increase the volume five times. Recently, someone even made a shortcut in iOS 12 to automatically disable the iPhone camera in case of a police investigation.
If you are interested in this shortcut you can download it from here.
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