This week, the Supreme Court listened to the government and defense attorneys argue over whether police should be allowed to snoop through people’s smartphones when they stop or arrest them. Most court watchersthink the justices will reach some kind of compromise, a “middle-ground rule”that permits some warrantless searches. At one point during the argument, Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that it might be okay for cops to look fire up Twitter and Facebook on someone’s smartphone, apps “that don’t have an air of privacy about them,” but maybe he was just trolling us.
Jonathan Zdziarski, an expert in iOS forensics who trains law enforcement how to get the digital goods from mobile devices, says it’s not just a privacy question but a pragmatic one. He argues that there’s a technological reason why cops shouldn’t fire up the smartphone and start poking around when they arrest someone: They might destroy evidence.
“If there are exigent circumstances –- such as an active kidnapping or someone’s life in danger –- police should go through a phone, but otherwise they risk destroying crucial evidence,” says Zdziarski. “They’ll play with it, go through apps — open Safari and Maps — and they do it wrong and destroy useful evidence. Then they ruin the data.”
