Police may have new ways to access data on locked iPhones

Police may have new ways to access data on locked iPhones A training video reportedly demonstrates how police can evade an Apple security feature. Privacy is one of Apple's core tenets, and in 2024, the company began equipping many iPhones with an inactivity reboot feature. This automatically restarts the device if it has not been unlocked for more than 72 hours. In practice, this has meant that law enforcement officials have been unable to access information on a smartphone. However, 404 Media reported that it has seen a training video made for law enforcement that allegedly demonstrates how tools made by Magnet Forensics can access data usually made unavailable by iPhones' inactivity reboot. "This is an absolute game changer for iOS forensics and a function that I wish we had years ago," a Magnet employee reportedly says in the video. Magnet Forensics makes GrayKey, which it primarily sells to police as a means of unlocking smartphones. According to the new video, the company has developed a workaround for iPhones' inactivity reboot both in a new GrayKey Preserve tool and in a new Evidence Preservation Mode for GrayKey. Although the video does not explicitly state how these resources work, 404 Media suggested that Magnet was able to put the phone in a state referred to as After First Unlock. More information can be accessed than when a device is in AFU compared to Before First Unlock. In the latter state, it is more difficult for anyone other than the owner to unlock the device and more of the data it contains is in an encrypted state. A Magnet rep is quoted as saying in the video that "Even if that device does reboot for any number of reasons, memory maintenance or the power is lost or whatever, the AFU state is not lost." Magnet workers claimed that the new products would also be able to prevent automatic iPhone features that delete some data after a certain number of days, including cached locations as well as recently deleted iMessages and photos. It's an unsettling development at a time when both local law enforcement teams and multiple federal agencies have faced accusations of skirting the lines of citizens' digital privacy.