Locking the phone with the PIN or pattern or hiding data in the iCloud storage is no more bullet-proof. Govt. of India is acquiring technology to unlock any smartphone in seconds for investigation purposes.
The Forensic Science Laboratory, located at Gandhi Nagar, Gujarat is buying the new technology from the Israeli firm Cellebrite. The company earlier helped to US’s FBI to unlock an anti-social element’s iPhone.
Most of the times police department find locked phones at suspected places, and they are using other lengthy methods to get data from the devices. But with the latest technology the Forensic department can unlock any phone in a short period and that indirectly minimizes the investigation time in crucial cases.
The technology can only bypass locking on devices which are using iOS 8 or earlier. But most of the people are using latest iPhone 6, 6S, and iPhone 7 which are working on the latest iOS 10 operating system. If the investigation agencies try to unlock the most recent iOS devices, after many failed attempts complete data will be deleted. So how far this technology helps the investigation is in question. But there are many other methods to get data from virtually any device.