On Thursday 404 Media reported that police were freaking out about mysteriously rebooting iPhones. Now multiple experts have found that Apple introduced code that reboots locked phones after a period of time.

  • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.worldEnglish
    65·
    1 month ago

    Your phone doesn’t fully decrypt until you enter your passcode the first time after a reboot. Once you enter your passcode that first time, it is decrypted for use. This is also why biometrics don’t let you unlock your phone until after that first unlock and decryption, biometrics are just a shortcut.

    So if the phone isn’t interacted with for a period of time, it will automatically reboot. This increases device security because it forces the device back to a fully encrypted state when unused for a while.

    Police don’t like this because it makes their job harder to get into a device the owner doesn’t want them to have access to. It also means that the time they have to get a court to force someone to unlock a device via biometrics is much shorter since that won’t work after a reboot.