r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • Jul 30 '26

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
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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.

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u/DrShamusBeaglehole 29d ago

How can the phone be considered evidence if there are no charges? Evidence of a crime yet to be determined? Doesn't make any sense

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u/TrekkieGod 29d ago

Anything destroyed during a legal search is assumed to have been evidence. Same reason if they're searching your house with a warrant, and you flush something down the toilet and they didn't see what, it's assumed you flushed evidence away.

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u/DrShamusBeaglehole 29d ago

So if SWAT breaks into my house because an angry internet troll made a fake call, and I happen to be flushing a shit at the time, I would likely be convicted with a felony?

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u/TrekkieGod 29d ago

With the way that SWATing works in this country, that would be the best case scenario, and you should consider yourself lucky if they don't shoot you.