what device does law enforcement use to collect your info from your cell phone?

Episode 101 of EFF's How to Prepare the Internet

If yous get pulled over and a police officeholder asks for your phone, beware. Local police force now have sophisticated tools that can download your location and browsing history, texts, contacts, and photos to go on or share forever. Join EFF'south Cindy Cohn and Danny O'Brien equally they talk to Upturn's Harlan Yu about a better way for police force to treat you lot and your information.

Click below to listen to the episode now, or choose your podcast thespian:

Today, even small-town police departments have powerful tools that tin easily access the most intimate information on your jail cell telephone.

When Upturn researchers surveyed police departments on the mobile device forensic tools they were using on mobile phones, they discovered that the tools are existence used by law departments large and small across America. There are few rules on what law enforcement tin practice with the data they download, and not very many policies on how the information should exist stored, shared, or destroyed.

Recently Upturn researchers surveyed police departments on the mobile device forensic tools they were using on mobile phones, and discovered that the tools are being used past law departments big and small beyond America. There are far besides few rules on what law enforcement tin do with the data they download, and not very many policies on how the information should exist stored, shared or destroyed.

Mobile device forensic tools can access nearly everything—all the data on the telephone—fifty-fifty when they're locked.

Yous tin also notice the Mp3 of this episode on the Internet Archive.

In this episode you'll learn about:

• Mobile device forensic tools (MDFTs) that are used by police to download information from your phone, even when information technology's locked
• How court cases such equally Riley v. California powerfully protect our digital privacy-- but those protections are evaded when police force become exact consent to search a telephone
• How widespread the use of MDFTs are by law enforcement departments across the state, including small-town police departments investigating minor infractions
• The roles that phone manufacturers and mobile device forensic tool vendors tin play in protecting user data
• How re-envisioning our approaches to phone surveillance helps address problems of systemic targeting of marginalized communities by police agencies
• The role of warrants in protecting our digital information.

Harlan Yu is the Executive Director of Upturn, a Washington, D.C,-based organization that advances equity and justice in the design, governance, and use of engineering science. Harlan has focused on the touch of emerging technologies in policing and the criminal legal organisation, such every bit body-worn cameras and mobile device forensic tools, and in particular their disproportionate effects on communities of color. Y'all tin discover him on Twitter @ harlanyu .

If y'all have whatsoever feedback on this episode, please email podcast@eff.org.

Below, you lot'll find legal resource – including links to important cases, books, and briefs discussed in the podcast – also a total transcript of the audio.

EFF is deeply grateful for the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Scientific discipline and Technology, without whom this podcast would not be possible.

This work is licensed under a Creative Eatables Attribution 4.0 International License. Additional music is used under artistic commons license from CCMixter includes:

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Resource

Legal Cases

• Riley v. California
• EFF's Instance Folio on Riley five. California
• EFF Blog Post: State v Burch
• EFF Amicus in State v Burch
• New Jersey's State v Carty
• Minnesota'south State five Fort

Other Resource

• Harlan Yu of Upturn
• EFF Web log Post: So-chosen "Consent Searches" Harm Our Digital Rights
• 2020 Upturn report on constabulary enforcement searching mobile phones
• 2020 Upturn written testimony to DC Council on police force budget and surveillance technologies
• EFF Blog Post: Congressmembers Enhance Doubts Nearly the "Going Night" Problem
• The Voluntariness of Voluntary Consent: Consent Searches and the Psychology of Compliance
• EFF Web log Post: Hole-and-corner Court Orders Aren't Blank Checks for General Electronic Searches
• EFF Blog Post: Appeals Court Avoids Difficult Questions About the "Collect It All" Arroyo to Computer Searches
• Access At present: ​​What spy firm Cellebrite tin can't hide from investors

Transcript of Episode 101: What Police Become When They Get Your Phone

Harlan: the fact that all of this information is collected and saved on your phone, right? Your web browsing history, your location, history. This is all data that is now kept digitally in ways that we'd never had records of this. And so over this by decade, smartphones take become this treasure trove for law enforcement.

Cindy: That's Harlan Yu. And he's our guest today on How to Fix The Internet. Harlan is the executive manager at Upturn where he'south working to advance disinterestedness and justice in the manner technology is used.

Danny: Harlan's going to talk to us about some of the tools used in policing. This tech makes law enforcement much more powerful when information technology comes to street level surveillance, and nosotros'll explore some of the dangers in that.

Cindy: Harlan has solutions that volition make united states all safer and protect our privacy. One of our key themes at EFF is that when yous get online or use digital tools, your rights should become with you. Harlan is going to tell us how to get at that place.

Cindy: I'thousand Cindy Cohn, EFFs executive manager.

Danny: and I'm Danny O'Brien and this is how to set up the internet, a podcast of the Electronic Borderland Foundation.

Cindy: Harlan. Thank you and then much for joining us. At Upturn,  you lot take been working in the space where technology and justice run across, and I'k really excited to dig into some of this with you.

Harlan: Thanks so much for having me, Cindy.

Cindy: So let'southward get-go by giving an caption about what kinds of tools police are using when it comes to our digital phones.

Harlan: last year and over the past ii years, my team and upturn and I, we published and have been doing a lot of inquiry on police enforcement's use of mobile device forensic tools. Now what a mobile device forensic tool does is it'southward a device where law enforcement volition plug your cell phone into that device. It allows law enforcement to extract and copy all of the data. So all of the emails, texts, photos, locations, and contacts even deleted information, off of your cell phone.  And if necessary, nosotros'll besides circumvent the security features on the telephone.

Harlan: So for case, device level encryptio in club to do that extraction, once it has all of the data from your telephone, these tools also help law enforcement to clarify all of that data in much more efficient ways. So imagine, you know, gigabytes of data on your telephone, it tin help law enforcement do keyword searches, create social graphs, make maps of all of the places that you've been.You know, so an officer who'south not super tech savvy, will be able to easily pour over that information. And then information technology tin can aid officers automatically detect photos and filter for photos that have, say weapons or tattoos or do text level classification besides.

Cindy: Yeah, there were some screenshots in that report that were really pretty stunning. You know, a little beautiful little touchscreen that lets you push a button and find out whether people are talking near drugs. Uh, another footling touch screen that lets you identify who the people are that you talk to the most ofttimes.

Cindy: you know, actually user-friendly

Harlan: these tools are made by a range of different vendors. The most pop being, uh, Celebrite,  greyness shift, which makes a tool chosen gray key, magnet forensics. And, you know, at that place'south a whole industry of vendors that brand these tools. And what our report did was nosotros submitted about 110 public records request to local and state law enforcement agencies around the country, asking nigh what tools they've purchased, how they're using them, and whether there are whatsoever policies in place that constraints their use. And what we found was that nearly every major law enforcement agency across the United States already has these tools. Including all 50 of the largest police departments in the country and country police enforcement agencies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Cindy: Wow, all beyond the country. How much are police using it?

Harlan: We found through our public records requests that police force enforcement have been doing, you know, hundreds of thousands of cell phone searches, and extractions, since 2015. This is non simply limited to, you know, the major constabulary enforcement agencies that have the resources to purchase these tools. We too found that many smaller agencies tin afford them. Then cities and towns with under, yous know, tens of thousands of residents with maybe a dozen or ii dozen officers, places like Shaker Heights in Ohio or Lompoc in California, or Walla Walla, Washington. The breadth and availability of these tools, was pretty shocking to u.s..

Cindy: You know, people might think that this is something that the FBI tin can do in national security cases or that, you lot know, we tin do in other situations, in which we've got very serious crimes past very dangerous people. But the matter that was stunning to me about the report you guys did was just how easy information technology is to do this, how often and how mundane the crimes are that are existence, uh, that are being identified through this. Tin you lot requite me a couple more examples or talk about that a little more?

Harlan: Yeah, that's exactly right. I think 1 of the main takeaways from our report is just how pervasive this tool is. Fifty-fifty for the most common. You know, I think in that location's this narrative, especially at the national level around encryption back doors, right. And the way that story gets told is that, you know, that law enforcement will employ these tools in high profile cases, cases similar terrorism and child exploitation, you know, they even utilize a term. Around exceptional or boggling access, which kind of indicates that access will be rare. I recall what our report does is that information technology challenges this prevailing wisdom that police enforcement is going night.

What law enforcement is saying every bit far from the entire story as a report points out where these kinds of tools and the law enforcement interest in accessing data on people'due south cell phones happens, non but in cases involving major harm, but we documented our report where across the state, these tools are existence used to investigate cases, including graffiti, shoplifting, vandalism, traffic crashes, parole violations, petty theft, public intoxication, you know, the full gamut of drug related offenses, you name it. These tools are being used every twenty-four hour period on the streets, in the The states right now.

Danny: "How to Gear up the Internet" is supported by The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Agreement of Science, enriching people'southward lives through a keener appreciation of our increasingly technological world and portraying the complex humanity of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.

Danny: And so you say that, that these devices non only tin can scan for data, but also make copies. Is there whatever kind of understanding we have about how long those copies are kept?

Harlan: That is a really important result. Ane thing that we asked police enforcement agencies to provide to united states of america through our public records requests were whether they have whatever policies in place. Just about half indicated that no policies at all among those but near 9 had policies that we would consider detailed enough to provide whatsoever meaningful guidance to constrain what officers exercise.

And then I remember for in large office law enforcement agencies don't have specific policies in place around the employ of these tools and that includes, you know, how long a law enforcement agency tin can retain and salvage that information. At present, maybe I'll just raise here a recent example in Wisconsin state vs Birch, which is a example that the eff, the ACLU and, Epic recently filed an Amicus brief in which was a case in Wisconsin where this suspect Birch was involved in this striking and run. And then the police verbally asked Birch whether or not they could see his text letters. The suspect said yes, and the constabulary had Mr. Birch sign kind of a vague consent form to search the phone. Correct.

And rather than just searching and looking at text messages based on the vague consent form, police enforcement did a full forensic extraction of the telephone and copied all of the information. Ultimately they plant no evidence in that particular case, but and then they stored that information. Now months later, Brown Canton Sheriff'southward office was investigating a homicide and they suspected that Mr. Birch was somehow involved.

And and so based on the extraction that a different constabulary department did and retaining that data, Brown County Sheriff'due south role and so was able to get a copy of that extraction and searched the telephone once again and institute that the suspect viewed news about the murder and there was location data on the telephone that indicated that he might exist effectually the location.

And in any case, he was then arrested and charged with the homicide an entirely unlike case from the commencement extraction. So I call up that case illustrates, I recall the dangers of, well, not only consent searches, which we can talk most, but the dangers of indefinite retention and the use of these tools overall.

Cindy: Oh, information technology'due south just chilling, correct? I hateful, essentially the law have a time machine. Right. And if they go your information at any, any point in time, then they tin just go back to it afterward and look at it. And I recall it's important to recognize that the cases that we hear most, like this case in Wisconsin, are the cases in which they plant something that could exist incriminating, but that says nothing nearly all the stories underneath the surface, where they didn't notice anything, only they however did a time machine search on people.

Cindy: I want to talk about consent in a 2d, but I recollect one of the things that your report really points out is that given the racial bug that we have in our law enforcement right now, this has very serious implications for equity, for who'due south going to get caught up in these kinds of wide searches and time machine searches And I wonder if you want to talk a piffling bit more about that.

Harlan: overall we meet police force enforcement adoption of these tools as a dangerous expansion in their investigatory power. Given how widespread and routine these tools are being used at the local level, and given also our history of racist and discriminatory policing practices, across the state that continues to this day, it'southward highly likely that these tools disparately affect and are used against communities of color. The communities that are already being over policed.

Danny: What are the kinds of things they can go from these searches?

Harlan: Mobile device forensic tools tin can access nearly everything, all the data on the telephone, even when sometimes when they're locked, right. You lot know, in creating mobile telephone operating systems, designers have to balance security with user convenience, right? So fifty-fifty when your phone's locked, it'd be really nice to get notifications, to know when there'due south an electronic mail or a, an event on your calendar.

Moreover, many Americans, particularly people of color and people of lower incomes rely solely on their prison cell phones to connect to the net.

Harlan: And so over this past decade, smartphones have become this treasure trove for law enforcement, where, you lot know, the data that we store on our phones, arguably. Contains much more sensitive information than even the physical artifacts that are in our homes. Which has traditionally been, possibly the nigh sacred identify, in terms of constitutional protection from intrusion from the regime.

Cindy: Now I want to talk a little flake almost, yous know, how the courts have been addressing the state of affairs we know, and a great victory for, uh, for privacy. Nosotros won a case called Riley vs California in the Supreme Courtroom a few years ago that basically said that you can't search somebody's phone incident to arrest without a warrant. Y'all need to get go a warrant.

Harlan: Constabulary enforcement is required to get a warrant to perform these kinds of phone searches, but at that place are many exceptions to this warrant requirement. One of them being the consent exception- this is a really common exercise that we're seeing on the ground, correct? When in that location's a consent search, those searches are then not bailiwick to the constraints and oversight that warrants typically provide.

Now, that's non to say that warrants actually provide that many constraints in reality. And we can talk near that. We see that more as a speed bump, but even those bones legal constraints are not in identify. And and so this is one of the reasons why one of the recommendations in our report is to ban the employ of consent searches of mobile phones, considering this idea of consent search in the policing context is essentially a legal fiction. There are several states that accept banned the use of consent searches for in traffic stop situations, New Jersey in 2002 Minnesota in 2003.

Earlier this twelvemonth the DC police force reform commission, they made the recommendation to the DC council that the DC council prohibit all consent searches, non just for mobile phones, but a blanket prohibition across the board. And if DC quango takes upwardly this recommendation, every bit far equally I know it would be the showtime full ban of consent searches anywhere beyond the country.

And then that'southward where Upturn believes that, the law should go.

Cindy: Aye. I merely think that the thought of even calling them consent searches is a bit of a lie, correct? You know, the, the, y'all know, either allow the states search your phone or allow united states search your firm, or we're going to have y'all downward, you lot know, and book you and hold yous for how many hours they possibly can, like that isn't a consent, right?

I recall that 1 of the things that nosotros're doing here is we're trying to be honest about a situation in which consent is actually the wrong discussion for what's going on hither, you lot know. I consent to lots of things because I have free volition. These are not situations like that.

Danny: And I don't call up that people would necessarily understand what they were consenting to. I mean, this has been eye-opening for me and I, I feel like I rail this kind of thing, just if we're talking almost banning consent searches using this technology, exercise you think the technology as a whole should be banned, do you think police should have access to these tools at all?

Harlan:I call up the goal needs to be, to reduce the use of these tools and the information available to police enforcement.

Danny: So, would that be a question of wrapping the use of these tools into sort of serious crimes or putting some constraints about how the information is used or how long it is stored for.

Harlan: I mean, I, I would worry about fifty-fifty legitimizing the utilize of these tools in certain cases, correct? Again, when in that location's a accuse, it's just the accusation that a person committed a particular crime. And I think no thing what the charge is, I think people should take the same rights. Then I don't necessarily call up that we should relax the rules for certain kinds of charges or non.

Cindy: It'south, it's a big stride to deny police force enforcement a tool, and so what's the other side of that?

Harlan: Well, I retrieve we can look toward, all of the costs that our arrangement of policing has on our society, right? When people become roped up into the criminal legal organization in the United States, information technology's extremely hard to then, you know, with a criminal record, get a task, have other economical opportunities to the extent that these tools are you know making law enforcement more powerful in their investigative powers. I'g just not sure that that'south the direction that our club needs to get. Correct. The incarceration rate in the U.s. is already, y'all know, far outside the norm.

Danny: I retrieve the way I tend to think near it is that nosotros have this protection, as y'all say, in a how a abode and possessions, but when you lot talk about mobile phones, you're actually getting much more closer to kind of your people's internal thought processes and it feels more than like either an interrogation or in some cases when you can become back and forth like this, a kind of listen reading exercise. And and then if annihilation, these very intimate devices should have fifty-fifty more protections than we take to our closest living environments.

Harlan: Ane commentator called the apply of these tools in particular, create a window into the soul. Right? These searches are incredibly invasive. They're incredibly broad. And yeah, every bit you're saying, you know, traditionally the dwelling has been the about sacred identify. There's an statement today that our phones should be just as sacred because they have the potential to reveal much more about united states of america than any concrete search.

Cindy: We talked about the fourth subpoena briefly, but it plays a part here too right?

Harlan: The fourth amendment requires warrants to describe with particularity the places to be searched and the things to be seized. Only in this context, oftentimes police enforcement agents as well rely on the patently view exception which effectively allows law enforcement to do anything during these searches, right?

Harlan: This is a problem that legal scholars take wrestled with and EFF has wrestled with for decades where for physical searches, the plainly view exception allows law enforcement to seize bear witness in plain view of any identify that they're lawfully permitted to be right. If it's immediately obvious that the incriminating grapheme of the evidence is there.

Simply for digital searches, you know, this standard makes no sense, right? This thought that digital evidence can, can exist in quote unquote, plain view, right? In the way that concrete prove can because how the software can display in sort, oversees data. I think is merely incoherent. The language can vary from warrant to warrant, but they all authorize essentially an unlimited, and unrestricted search of the cell telephone. So I think there'due south a questions here as well, even in the search warrant context is whether these warrants are sufficiently particular. I think in many cases, the answer has got to exist clearly no.

Danny: So these tools to clarify these phones are fabricated by companies all around the world. Do you recollect they're used all around the world?

Harlan: Yeah, I recollect, human rights activists have been seeing this happen all around the world, especially for journalists who live in authoritarian countries, where, yeah, we're seeing, you know, lots of governments, purchasing these tools and using them to limit liberty of speech and liberty of expression in many other places, in addition to here.

Cindy: Then allow's, permit's switch gears and talk a trivial chip nearly what the world looks similar if we get this correct. This is dissimilar a lot of difficult problems, this is one where you've actually clearly articulated a way that we can fix information technology. And so permit's say that we ban constabulary enforcement use of these devices, or nosotros ban show you lot know, collected through the use of these devices from being open-door, some kind of extension of the exclusionary rule. How's this going to feel and work for those of u.s.a. who have phones, which is by the way, all of usa.

Harlan: I think,  you know, people will probably need to worry a little bit less, or less oft about the ways that powerful institutions like the police can have that window into your soul to accept an within look to the things that you're thinking, the things that you lot're searching online, the things that you're curious about, the places that you're going correct with location information being stored on the phone. Whether y'all're going to a doctor's office or a church building or other, other religious institution, all sorts of sensitive data will at least be accessed less frequently by law enforcement in a mode that hopefully will provide a greater sense of freedom and liberation specially in the social club that we live in here in the U.s..

Cindy: the freedom and the space of privacy that we get is not but for the individual whose phone is seized. There's a broader result on this, non but for the people who are, you know, find themselves pulled over by the cops. Information technology'southward going to be for all the people who always talked to interact with, learn from, or read about, uh, the people who get pulled over by the cops.

Harlan: Yeah, that'due south absolutely right. Correct. The photos on my phone have some pictures of me, but are too of my family unit are likewise of my customs. And my text letters as well include apparently sensitive data that other people are providing to me. The contacts in my phone, right? Just my social graph.

Danny: So ane of the things that I think tin can make people experience a little bit hopeful in what tin feel a very oppressive story. Is what they can exercise to change this. And what is the role of individuals in transforming, this story?

Harlan: I'chiliad not sure that individual decisions are really gonna. Us to the future where we want to exist. Right. We can't tell individuals to purchase a higher end prison cell phone if they don't have the resources to do so. Right. Or to have every private, you know, configure their phones in only the right style. I'm not certain that that is a realistic outcome. To get to where we want to be. I recollect, you know, the better arroyo is to wait more systemically at the problems with our police force, with the problems in law enforcement and problems where, you know, nosotros can fix information technology, for anybody, you know, at the systemic level. And I recall that those are the areas of opportunity in which we should focus.

Danny: In this positive vision where nosotros're, nosotros're presenting, is there a role for the phone companies themselves? Is there some capacity that they should be playing even in a sort of utopia where the laws and policies in the courts back up, protecting your privacy?

Harlan: Yeah. The phone manufacturers have substantially been playing a cat and mouse game with police enforcement over decades, right. Uh, these tools that are beingness created past celebrite and gray shift, you know, they tin break into the latest, you know, iPhones and the highest finish Samsung, Android phones, with rare exception, correct? Then in that location'southward this thought too, that even in the example of a locked telephone, that police enforcement is having trouble getting access to fifty-fifty if, you know, you but turn on the telephone and in that location is device encryption, in that location's actually a significant amount of information on iPhones that remains un-encrypted exterior of the encrypted portion of the phone, what technical folks called before outset unlock now after the first unlocks of the user unlocks the telephone and and so information technology gets locked.

Fifty-fifty more than united nations-encrypted data becomes available. Right.

Danny: Why is that?

Harlan: That'south a pattern decision that most manufacturers make to provide users with, you know, convenient features. This is just what they believe is the correct balance. And so, yep, I think at that place's a role here for the phone manufacturers to continue to accost vulnerabilities and to make information technology more difficult for law enforcement to become access.

I call back there'south also a potential role here to play by the vendors of the mobile device forensic tools. Right? I think one thing that we suggest in our report is that the vendors of these tools ought to maintain an audit log for every search, right, that details, the precise steps that a police enforcement officer took when extracting and analyzing the phone. The goal hither would be better equipped. In cases to push dorsum and to claiming the telescopic of these searches. If we could, for case, played back using, say automatic screen reading applied science, play back exactly what an examiner looked at or the process in what the examiner took in doing the search.

This would allow the guess and the defense force lawyers, a adventure to ask questions, and for defence force lawyers to have a amend gamble potentially of suppressing over seized information.

Cindy: What does public safety look similar in this world?

Harlan: Public safe is not the aforementioned as policing. Right? I call back public condom means communities and individuals who have economic condom, who have economic opportunity, take stable housing, have job opportunities, take a proficient teaching. Right? I think we need to, you know, as, many black feminists have laid out the vision around defunding the police, right? The idea here isn't simply to tear down the police force, but the procedure of what we accept to build up.

Cindy: I really agree with you Harlan, getting this correct isn't about whether we requite or have abroad a particularly sophisticated police force enforcement tool. Information technology's almost shoring up the systems in communities that are too ofttimes unfairly targeted by surveillance. At EFF we say nosotros can't surveil ourselves to safety and I think your work really demonstrates that.

Harlan: The idea here isn't simply to tear downwardly the police, but really the procedure of what we need to build upwardly to back up people and their families and their communities, which is things that don't wait like surveillance tools and law enforcement as we have it today, merely the absence of that and the creation and the existence of other structures that are supportive of people's livelihoods and power to thrive and to be gratuitous.

Cindy: Oh, Harlan. This has been and then interesting. And we actually enjoyed talking with y'all. And the work that you guys do at upturn is but fabulous. Right? Really bringing a deep tech lens into the tools that law enforcement is using and recognizing how that's going to impact all of us in club, but especially the most vulnerable.

Cindy: Thanks then much for taking some time to talk with united states. And, uh, let's, let's hope we move towards this, this vision of this better globe together.

Danny: Thanks Harlan, information technology's been great.

Harlan: Cheers so much for having me.

Cindy: Well, that was just terrific. You know, ane of the things that struck me on this every bit we've spent a lot of time on this podcast, and of course, EFF has, you know, fighting for the ability for people to have strong encryption, especially on their devices. One of the things that the enquiry that Upturn did demonstrated is that's just a tiny fiddling slice of things. In general, our phones are broadly available and everything that'south on our phones and even stuff in the deject that'due south attainable through our phones is widely available to constabulary enforcement. So information technology actually strikes me every bit funny that we're spending on this tiny little slice where law enforcement might have some small problems getting admission to stuff where in the gigantic piece of it they're already having free access to everything that's on our phone.

Danny: Well, I recollect that in that location'southward always this framing that the world is going dark for law enforcement because of encryption. And no 1 talks virtually the fact that information technology's lighting up similar a huge scanning display when information technology comes to the devices themselves and every technologist you talk to says, yeah, all bets are off one time you hand a device to someone else because they can disengage whatever protections that you lot might take on it. I think the thing that really struck me about this, though, that I hadn't realized is but how cheap and bachelor this is. I did have it in my head that this was an FBI matter, and at present nosotros're seeing information technology used by really quite pocket-sized local boondocks constabulary departments and for very low level crime too.

Cindy: Yeah,  it's eye opening. I think the other affair that'south opening nearly this piece of work is about how police enforcement is using consent, or at to the lowest degree the fiction of consent, to go effectually a very powerful Supreme Courtroom protection that we got in a case chosen Riley vs California in 2022 that bans search incident to arrest without a warrant and the cops are just simply walking right effectually that by getting, you know, phony consent from people.

Danny: I've been in that situation going through immigration where I'm asked to hand over my telephone and that it's very hard to say no, considering you just kind of assume they're going to flick through the last few entries and that'southward not what happens in these situations.

Now Harlen wants to ban these consent searches completely. Practice y'all agree with that?

Cindy: Yeah, I actually do and the reason I do is because it'due south so phony. I hateful, it'due south the idea that these are consensual, it doesn't pass the giggle test, right? The way that power works in these situations and the force per unit area that cops put on you lot to call this consent, I think it'south really not true. And and so I don't think we should embrace legal fictions and the legal fiction that these searches are consensual is one that we only demand to do abroad with because they are non.

Danny: And then while we're talking about banning consent search is one of the more positive things I got out of this discussion is there's no implication that we should exist banning or forcing people to be more than cautious in how they, they use their phones. Harlan called these tools essentially creating a window into the soul. Simply I think they also enhance our lives. I mean, they're non just a window into the soul. They actually give us ways to remember things that we would forget. They give us instant access to the earth's knowledge. They make sure that I will never get lost again. And, and all of these things are things that nosotros should be able to preserve in a free club. Despite the fact that they are so intimate and and then revealing, I think that just ways that they accept to have the aforementioned protections that nosotros would give to the thoughts in our head.

Cindy: I think this is one of the ways that we need to make sure that we fix things. Nosotros demand to prepare things then that people can still have their devices. They can still have their tools. They tin can still outsource their retentivity and part of their brain to a device that they conduct around in their pockets all the time. And  that is protected. The answer here isn't to limit what nosotros tin can do with our devices. The reply is to lift up the protections that we go from law enforcement in guild over the fact that nosotros want to apply these tools.

Danny:Thank you lot for joining u.s. on how to set up the net. Check out our testify notes, which volition include a link to Upturn'south report. You tin can also go legal resources there, transcripts of the episode, and much more "How to Fix the Internet" is supported by The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Plan in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

And the music is past Nat Keef and Reed Mathis of Beatmower. Thanks for being with us today. And thank you once more to our invitee Harlan Yu from Upturn. I'm Danny O'Brien.

Cindy: And I'm Cindy Cohn.

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Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/11/podcast-episode-what-police-get-when-they-get-your-phone#:~:text=Now%20what%20a%20mobile%20device,off%20of%20your%20cell%20phone.

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