A training video reported how police can bypass an Apple security feature.
Privacy is one of Apple’s core tenets, and in 2024 the company began equipping many iPhones with an inactivity restart feature. This will automatically restart the device if it has not been unlocked for more than 72 hours. In practice, this meant that law enforcement officers could not access information on a smartphone. However, 404 media reported that it has seen a training video for law enforcement, which allegedly shows how Magnet Forensics tools can access data that is not normally available due to the inactivity of iPhones.
“This is an absolute game changer for iOS forensics and a feature I wish we had years ago,” a Magnet employee said in the video. Magnet Forensics makes GrayKey, which it mainly sells to police as a means of unlocking smartphones. According to the new video, the company has developed a solution to restart the inactivity of iPhones in both a new GrayKey Preserve tool and a new Evidence Preservation Mode for GrayKey.
Although the video does not explicitly state how these resources work, 404 media suggested that the magnet puts the phone in a state called After First Unlock. More information can be accessed when a device is in AFU compared to Ier First Unlock. In the latter state, it is more difficult for anyone other than the owner to unlock the device and more of the data it contains is in an encrypted state. A Magnet rep is quoted as saying in the video that “Even if this device restarts for any number of reasons, memory maintenance or power is lost or whatever, the AFU state is not lost.”
Magnet workers claim that the new products will also be able to prevent automatic iPhone features that delete some data after a certain number of days, including cached locations as well as recently deleted iMessages and photos. It’s a troubling development at a time when both local law enforcement teams and several federal agencies have faced accusations of toeing the lines of citizens’ digital privacy.