US police unlock iPhones with fingers of deceased

Police in the US would regularly unlock iPhones with Touch ID protection, by holding the finger of the deceased on the fingerprint scanner. In this way, the police avoid high costs to crack the security.

Based on a report by an FBI forensic specialist, Forbes describes a police attempt in November 2016 to unlock the iPhone of a murder suspect who was shot dead by placing his finger on an iPhone’s fingerprint scanner. That attempt failed because the device demanded a passcode upon awakening.

Several anonymous Forbes sources familiar with investigations by the local and federal police in New York and Ohio report that it is relatively common for the fingers of the deceased to be used to unlock iPhones. As an example, a victim of an overdose is mentioned, whose contents of the iPhone were able to shed light on his dealer.

The practice prevents the police from having to turn to expensive services like Cellebrite to break or bypass the encryption of iPhones. No search warrant is required to gain access to devices of the deceased and there is no violation of privacy under US law.

The American police would also investigate how to unlock Face ID from the iPhone X. According to a Cloudflare security researcher, holding an effigy of a living person in front of the face scanner is not required. That scanner would take eye movements into account, but this function would be easy to deceive.