Are there any legal experts that want to weigh in on this.
Can the police in New Zealand force unlock your device with your biometrics?
How does this work with NZ law?
My autistic ass who doesn’t use bioauthenticators thought this meant I shouldn’t enter the passcode with my thumb or nose
Imstructions unclear. Phone in ass.
IANAL but this seems to be pretty common all across the world. The usual recommendation is to put your phone in “lockdown” mode if there’s any suspicion you may get arrested. This prevents the phone from being unlocked with biometrics and require pin.
You can do this either by restarting or turning off your phone, or a button combination (power + volume up on my android) and selecting lockdown.
Holding power + volume down in an iphone until the power off menu comes up disables faceid until you log in with your pin as well
Thanks for the info, I doubt I’ll need it, but it is always good to know.
Just a note, on a Samsung, go to settings and search for “lockdown” to enable the option, then hold the power button and the option is visible.
At least on my stock Android Pixel you cannot use biometrics to unlock after a restart. So if you just hold down the power button to shut off the phone it would require a pin after booting.
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If you close your eyes the face id won’t work. I suppose the police could force you to open your eyes somehow but if they are going to do that they can force you to put your pin in too.
😌 “Look at this cute kitten” 😯
They would get me every time.
For Android:
Power+Volume up > Lockdown.
Takes a fraction of a second.I assume iPhone has something similar.
I’m not a legal expert but as far as I know if the police are arresting you they can compel this in New Zealand. There is no difference in unlock methods. People get charges for not complying.
This page seems to back this up but it is old.
It links to the legislation which seems to support it:
A person exercising a search power in respect of any data held in a computer system or other data storage device may require a specified person to provide access information and other information or assistance that is reasonable and necessary to allow the person exercising the search power to access that data.
Effectively, if the police search is otherwise legal, then they can compel you to unlock your phone. If you don’t, you can get up to 3 months in prison:
178 Offence of failing to carry out obligations in relation to computer system search
Every person commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months who fails, without reasonable excuse, to assist a person exercising a search power when requested to do so under section 130(1).
However, section 130 (2) says:
A specified person may not be required under subsection (1) to give any information tending to incriminate the person.
But clarifies in 130 (3):
Subsection (2) does not prevent a person exercising a search power from requiring a specified person to provide information or providing assistance that is reasonable and necessary to allow the person exercising the search power to access data held in, or accessible from, a computer system or other data storage device that contains or may contain information tending to incriminate the specified person.
So basically, if the data used to unlock your phone can incriminate you, you don’t have to provide it. But that doesn’t protect you from incriminating evidence on your phone.
So I guess the moral of the story is that if you’re a drug dealer, make sure your phone password is “ImADrugDealer” and then you can’t be forced to provide that information. But I guess they can force you to unlock it without telling them the password? so I’m not sure what section 130 (2) had in mind.
(I’m also not a legal expert 🙂)
The moral of the story to me is leave your smartphone at home and just bring a dumbphone if you think you could be arrested.
My dumbphone has a broken key and it is infuriatingly hard to unlock though so it might antagonize them.
Haha I think it’s probably best not to antagonise the police if you can help it!
Exactly!
It antagonizes the people in my life; that’s bad enough.
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If you have the Mona Lisa in your house then letting the police into your house incriminates you, but the whole point of the search is for them to be able to find it.
I think the right to remain silent was meant to protect us from being tortured, not as a shield to hide things?
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I think the point is that you can grant them access in 3 seconds, it’s not like you’re giving an onerous task to someone.
While in implementation your notebook analogy may be right, in practice it’s more similar to the police searching your house and asking you to unlock the basement so they can search there too. It’s not exactly a big ask, it’s as simple as unlocking it with the key you have, so from a legal perspective it’s perfectly reasonable.
From a privacy perspective it’s not great, but I’d argue the control should be on when someone is allowed to rummage through your stuff, it shouldn’t matter if your notebook is physical or on your phone. Practicality changes this of course.
