Can police use your face to unlock your phone? A case out of Ohio has people asking.
Forbes reported that this is the first known instance of federal agents compelling a suspect to unlock an iPhone X with facial recognition. On Aug. 10, FBI investigators served a search warrant on Grant, a 28 year old man from Columbus, Ohio. Grant was later arrested and charged in a child pornography investigation. Those charges are allegations and have not been proven in court.
The case has sparked a debate over how the Constitution applies to biometric locks. Rolling Stone looked at the legal question and noted that in the 2014 case Riley v. California, the Supreme Court ruled that police generally need a warrant to search a phone. Rolling Stone also explained that courts have often treated passcodes as testimonial, meaning a person cannot be forced to reveal one, while fingerprints and faces are treated as physical features that identify a person.
Clare Garvie, a fellow at Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology, told Rolling Stone that passcodes have historically been protected because giving one up would make a defendant a witness against himself.
The takeaway for now is that a warrant matters, and the law around face and fingerprint unlocking is still being tested. Courts have not settled the question.
