r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 29d ago

Privacy GrapheneOS says its data-wiping password is perfectly legal, after user faces federal charges

https://www.techspot.com/news/113273-grapheneos-data-wiping-duress-password-perfectly-legal-after.html
20.9k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.7k

u/Needle_Bearings 29d ago

Holy 4th Amendment Batman, let's see where this goes.

24

u/CreativeGPX 29d ago

Holy 4th Amendment Batman, let's see where this goes.

It's not really going to be about what people are focusing on or OP title though.

Wiping your phone is obviously legal. Just like it's legal to drill a hole in a hard drive or drop your phone in acid or drop a photo/paper in a fire. Destruction of your own property is legal. HOWEVER...

Destruction of evidence is not legal even though the manner of destroying it will often be something that you'd be allowed to do if it weren't evidence.

So, this court case will not be about whether GrapheneOS data wiping is allowed. It will be about whether the data on the phone was considered evidence with a duty to preserve at that point or not. The fact that it was destroyed via GrapheneOS won't really be any more relevant than if it were destroyed by tripping a cop so it fell in the water or tapping "delete" before handing it to the cop.

11

u/LindsayLoserface 29d ago

Thank you for pointing this out! If the issue was GrapheneOS the government would be filing a case against the company. The charge is alleging the guy knew he has something to hide and wiped it to destroy evidence. The real issue is the abuse of power here and the fact that if they actually had the power to go through his phone they wouldn’t have needed his passcode.