Protecting Your iPhone from . . . the Police

Hopefully by now, most people who have upgraded to a smartphone (such as an iPhone, Blackberry, or Android) have realized that it’s not simply a phone, but a powerful mobile computer which just happens to be about the size of a 3″ x 5″ index card.  And just like your big heavy personal computer or laptop, it contains all sorts of personal information—perhaps too much information—about you and what you do.  If you haven’t come to that conclusion yet, the increasing police power of the state may soon force you to.  It should also force you to take steps to protect yourself from what could become an overzealous police officer should you ever find yourself in the unfortunate situation of being arrested (even for a misdemeanor).

For me, a big part of being a technology and internet lawyer is privacy law.  While privacy appears to have all but  disappeared in this 24/7 networked world where everyone posts a whole lot of information about themselves, it’s easy to forget that not everything is everyone’s business—especially the police, who may seek to use such information against you for violations of laws that you may not have realized even existed.  Think it can’t happen?  As a lawyer, I’ve seen many overzealous police officers, state agents, and prosecutors looking to establish a name for themselves.  Civil liberties be damned.  (Of course, there are many good ones too, but it’s often the other ones we hear about.)

An insightful article by Ryan Radia discusses the recent California Supreme Court decision in People v. Diaz, which held that police officers can lawfully search a mobile phone on a person they arrest without first obtaining a search warrant.  The court found that mobile phones, like cigarette packs and wallets, fall under the “search incident to arrest” exception of the Fourth Amendment.  While the Supreme Court may have the final say as to whether this is legal, many state courts have come to the same conclusion as California has.

Most significantly, Radia discusses the importance of taking measures to make your smartphone as secure as possible, such as full disk encryption of all content on the device.  He notes that password protection—which is certainly an important first step—may not be enough and is easy to bypass due not only to the rise of digital forensics, but the vulnerabilities in your smartphone’s own operating system that a forensic expert can exploit easily.  While Radia notes that no mobile encryption system at the moment is perfect or especially secure, this will hopefully change.

If you have a few minutes, the article is definitely worth a read.  Whether people realize it or not, privacy is one of the most daunting issues facing us (and lawyers) in this information age, and the law has difficulty keeping up.  And as the Diaz case shows when the law does catch up, it’s usually not in our favor, but works to the benefit of the state’s police power.  At least for now.

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