The legal situation is more complex and nuanced than the headline implies, so the article is worth reading. This adds another ruling to the confusing case history regarding forced biometric unlocking.
If you were dumb enough to put your thumbprint into the phone in the first place then they already have it and they can access it through the modem. The courts are playing a kabuki theater or cabaret skit.
Enter pin
“I don’t know what happened, it’s the right code, might be broken.”
That pin was device self sanitiziation trigger for preventing information from falling in the hands of the enemy.
Then buy enough claymores to make sure there will not be a second encounter with enemy forces.
A duress password to remove selected profiles would be amazing. So it still unlocks but quietly removes the profiles you are worried about.
Not even remove them, honestly. Just unlock the phone into a sanitized, honeypot account that has no access to the secured accounts contents!
Not as part of core GrapheneOS, but an app called “Private Lock” can detect sudden force via accelerometer and disable the fingerprint based unlocking for next unlock.
But yeah, an erase passcode feature with opening a decoy profile would be a great feature to have.
E: grammar
This may be the first time a federal ruling has been made but I don’t know if it applies to state crimes. Many counties across the nation have ruled one way or another.
SCOTUS once ruled law enforcemeny cannot compel you to unlock a device at all and cannot access your phone without a warrant, but I don’t know if that is current. Police can legally lie to you (and beat you with a $5 wrench and pronably get away with it in court).
They also have strong phone cracking packages despite FBI’s lament about evidence locked away in seized devices.
Generally, do not consent to searches or cooperate without a lawyer present. Expect everything an officer tells you is intended to mislead. They will even lie in court to the judge.
First order of business: never enable the thumbprint lock on your phone.
Second order of business: never conduct any sensitive business or communication with a mobile phone.
Third order of business: use a very strong passphrase to lock your phone.
Fourth order of business: understand that all your phone calls and text messages are hoovered up into spook databases.
This is one of many reasons you should use a password of some kind that you keep inside of your head to unlock your phone rather than a biometric that people can use to unlock it against your will.
Or just use lockdown mode in android to force phone to only unlock with password
How is that different from the usual way of having a password as your way of accessing your phone?
lockdown mode is a button that comes up with the power menu. they mean turn it on when you’re pulled over or whatever
???
