Suspects can refuse to provide phone passcodes to police, court rules
Suspects can refuse to provide phone passcodes to police, court rules
Phone-unlocking case law is "total mess," may be ripe for Supreme Court review.
There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Criminal suspects can refuse to provide phone passcodes to police under the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, according to a unanimous ruling issued today by Utah's state Supreme Court.
Police officers obtained a search warrant for the contents of Valdez's phone but couldn't crack his passcode.
At his trial, the state "elicited testimony from the detective about Valdez's refusal to provide his passcode when asked," today's ruling said.
"And during closing arguments, the State argued in rebuttal that Valdez's refusal and the resulting lack of evidence from his cell phone undermined the veracity of one of his defenses.
"While these circumstances involve modern technology in a scenario that the Supreme Court has not yet addressed, we conclude that these facts present a more straightforward question that is answered by settled Fifth Amendment principles."
"One of the major issues in the law of digital evidence investigations is how the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination applies to unlocking phones," Kerr wrote.
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