So, there’s a bunch of factors going on regarding crap like this. The general argument is that the passwords are protected by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the protection against testifying against yourself. While biometrics are not.

Then there’s the Constitution Free Zone established by the DHS and ICE and upheld by some judges depending on how related to immigrant control your detention by law enforcement is. The Federalist Society doesn’t like non-nationals, and if you can’t prove you’re an American in the zone (100 inland from any US border) then you get zero Constitutional protections.

Then there’s the matter that law enforcement can lie to you to convince you to authorize searches. So they may insist you are required by law to open your device for them when you are not. This is why you don’t cooperate without a lawyer. For now police are not allowed to give you a fake lawyer and lawyers, even public defenders, are required to adhere to a code of ethics to serve in the client’s interests. But this may change in the next few years as rights in the US deteriorate.

Then police departments in Cook County (Chicago), New York City and Los Angeles have all used the $5 wrench method to force detainees to open their devices. While there are allegedly laws against this sort of thing, it doesn’t slow down the precincts, and judges sometimes uphold found evidence in court the way they’ll uphold coerced confessions.

So it’s really better not to interact with law enforcement ever if you can avoid it, and to have a high powered defense lawyer if you can afford to establish a legal relationship with one. If you’re doing something the state wouldn’t like (say, operating a mutual aid program) then look into having multiple accounts on your phone, one of which is pristine and can call your grandma. Then you have the option to unlock to that account rather than the one that has your life’s history (and all your CFAA violations).

Shut down your phones so they can’t uze biometrics on you

this is still up in the air, but it seems to be generally breaking such that police can force you to use fingerprints or faceID to unlock your phone because fingerprints and face scans are evidence, but you can refuse to give them a passcode because a passcode is testimony. so use passcodes, not biometrics.

* in the USA.

Would be handy to have that key piece of information on the title, so I know I don’t need to read the article, as it’s about law in a different country.

While it’s tough to have any sympathy for an offender like this, even the worst monsters are entitled to due process and their rights as human beings. Most of the article is about disobeying the court, so that really shouldn’t be news.

It’s the twisted logic that got them there that’s really suspect. If I can paraphrase, “we don’t have enough evidence to incriminate you so you must provide that evidence. The ruling stand because the police already know you’re guilty so incriminating yourself is not self-incrimination”. Yeah, I took some liberties with it, but not as much as the court

At least the ruling limiting jail time makes sense, you can’t imprison someone for contempt longer than the court proceedings, or impanelment, or 18 months, whichever comes first. I didn’t see any implications in the article, but hopefully it either applies generally to contempt, or any contempt charge has a similar limitation. You can’t just imprison someone indefinitely for refusing to speak

Isn’t this a human right?

What about biometrics?

I’m sorry, but this headline is weird to me because “I forgot my passcode” if a cop ever asks me for it.

That’s for including jurisdiction in the headline like we’ve all been asking for. V helpful.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Criminal suspects can refuse to provide phone passcodes to police under the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, according to a unanimous ruling issued today by Utah’s state Supreme Court.

Police officers obtained a search warrant for the contents of Valdez’s phone but couldn’t crack his passcode.

At his trial, the state “elicited testimony from the detective about Valdez’s refusal to provide his passcode when asked,” today’s ruling said.

"And during closing arguments, the State argued in rebuttal that Valdez’s refusal and the resulting lack of evidence from his cell phone undermined the veracity of one of his defenses.

“While these circumstances involve modern technology in a scenario that the Supreme Court has not yet addressed, we conclude that these facts present a more straightforward question that is answered by settled Fifth Amendment principles.”

“One of the major issues in the law of digital evidence investigations is how the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination applies to unlocking phones,” Kerr wrote.

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