Apple’s New iPhone Security Feature Confuses Law Enforcement: Device Auto-Restarts After Inactivity

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Apple makes additional security for iPhone users. However, this update has law enforcement confused.

The reason is that this feature causes the iPhone to restart suddenly after being inactive for several days, making it difficult for law enforcement or forensic teams to break into it.

This is known from last week’s 404 Media report. Where an iPhone held for forensic examination suddenly restarted, making it difficult for law enforcement to collect evidence from the suspect’s device.

According to the findings of the researcher Dr. -Ing. Jiska Classen of the Hass Plattner Institute, Apple quietly added a new feature in iOS 18.1 that will restart the iPhone if it is not unlocked for a certain period of time.

The iPhone feature that worries the police is called ‘activity resume’. Basically this feature is a timer that counts how long an iPhone with iOS 18 or higher is inactive or unlocked.

This timer starts after the device is unlocked or when the user first unlocks the iPhone since the device is turned on.

With this feature, after four days of not using the device and being locked, the device restarts while inactive, as mentioned from Mashable, Tuesday (12 /11/2024).

This restart will bring the iPhone to the “Before the first unlock” state, where the user must enter a password or PIN to unlock the cell phone.

A cryptographer explained to 404 Media that the practical reason for this feature is to prevent thieves from stealing iPhones, hacking the devices, then reselling them or using personal data for malicious purposes.

However, it seems that this change has had an impact on law enforcement officers and that they are now spreading information to others in the field about how to deal with it.

(fab/fab)

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