I believe in many countries it is punishable, if you destroy evidence, so that’s a stupid move.
Edit: I know it is an emotional topic and that the police is always bad. There was no need to provide the duress PIN. He could have just stayed quiet, which is anyways recommend until you have a lawyer next to you. By providing the duress PIN, he made himself a target for criminal prosecution. That’s all I am saying. Providing this PIN is a stupid move in a situation like this. Just stay quiet.
Mustn’t evidence be clearly relevant to the suspicion of a crime? If we call anything the police might take an interest in “evidence”, then in principle destroying anything could land you in prison. All the cops would have to do is declare they wanted to see the thing you destroyed.
Well in some cases you have the issue of urgency, which is why police do have some certain rights without getting the clearance from a judge or criminal prosecutor. Not sure how it is in the US though.
We don’t know how the story went behind the scenes, so we can’t really say if it was justified or not.
What makes the contents of his phone evidence? They stopped him for further search because they were investigating him. But crucially, he was not aware he was under investigation and was not told he was. They didn’t follow the protocols that would have let him know he was being detained while they investigated a crime. As far as he knew he’d been chosen randomly for a secondary screening.
Then, instead of asking him questions relevant to what he was actually being investigated for, they started asking him about CSAM and demanding he unlock his phone. You are not required and they cannot compell you (in the USA) to unlock your device using a pin or password (but they can do so if you use biometeric unlock like face ID or fingerprint).
So in reality, what happened is they requested a pin and he didn’t provide the correct pin (which is his right), and the pin he did provide wiped the phone when the agent entered it. He didn’t destroy anything. They did.
It depends so much on the circumstances. And they would also have to prove to some degree that it was intentional.
I can only really speak for Sweden. They can forcibly use your fingerprint or face to unlock it. But you are under no obligation to give up a password to begin with.
It’s also a question of if they have officially confiscated it or not.
I believe in many countries it is punishable, if you destroy evidence, so that’s a stupid move.
Edit: I know it is an emotional topic and that the police is always bad. There was no need to provide the duress PIN. He could have just stayed quiet, which is anyways recommend until you have a lawyer next to you. By providing the duress PIN, he made himself a target for criminal prosecution. That’s all I am saying. Providing this PIN is a stupid move in a situation like this. Just stay quiet.
Mustn’t evidence be clearly relevant to the suspicion of a crime? If we call anything the police might take an interest in “evidence”, then in principle destroying anything could land you in prison. All the cops would have to do is declare they wanted to see the thing you destroyed.
Well in some cases you have the issue of urgency, which is why police do have some certain rights without getting the clearance from a judge or criminal prosecutor. Not sure how it is in the US though.
We don’t know how the story went behind the scenes, so we can’t really say if it was justified or not.
What makes the contents of his phone evidence? They stopped him for further search because they were investigating him. But crucially, he was not aware he was under investigation and was not told he was. They didn’t follow the protocols that would have let him know he was being detained while they investigated a crime. As far as he knew he’d been chosen randomly for a secondary screening.
Then, instead of asking him questions relevant to what he was actually being investigated for, they started asking him about CSAM and demanding he unlock his phone. You are not required and they cannot compell you (in the USA) to unlock your device using a pin or password (but they can do so if you use biometeric unlock like face ID or fingerprint).
So in reality, what happened is they requested a pin and he didn’t provide the correct pin (which is his right), and the pin he did provide wiped the phone when the agent entered it. He didn’t destroy anything. They did.
It depends so much on the circumstances. And they would also have to prove to some degree that it was intentional.
I can only really speak for Sweden. They can forcibly use your fingerprint or face to unlock it. But you are under no obligation to give up a password to begin with.
It’s also a question of if they have officially confiscated it or not.
Yep, fully agree. We don’t know if a judge or criminal prosecutor was involved or not.