ASBURY PARK, N.J. – Authorities investigating the disappearance of Stephanie Parze seized two cell phones in the hopes of providing clues to what happened to her.
They couldn’t open them.
Smartphones were locked and the information they contained was protected by sophisticated encryption software. Apple and Google have turned down attempts by law enforcement to force them to unlock phones connected to criminal investigations.
The case highlights the challenges investigators have faced in the years since Apple refused to create a “backdoor” to give authorities direct access to iPhones, a fight between the US government to the world’s largest business and raised questions about the balance between privacy and private life. collective security.
Apple, which has fought the FBI for access to cell phones of suspected terrorists, said it could not unlock iPhones for police without compromising customer privacy and the security of its devices.
Monmouth County prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said that asking for permission from a judge to unlock a cell phone should be no different from traditional warrants to monitor bank accounts or search the house of a suspect. In these cases, a judge allows authorities to access even the most intimate aspects of a person’s life if they can establish the likely cause that a crime has been committed, he said.
“This is reflected in our Constitution. It works in our criminal justice system. And now, for whatever reason, in recent years we have only big tech companies that refuse to help under these circumstances, ”said Gramiccioni. “It’s the only place where a tech company, a company or whatever, is allowed to skate to help, and I think it’s just a shame.”
Smartphones could provide the essential evidence needed to prosecute suspects, including photos, text messages, emails, location data, internet browsing history or patterns of use, Gramiccioni said.
“It’s a classic dilemma between law enforcement and the right to privacy,” said Elie Honig, executive director of the Rutgers Institute for Secure Communities. “Obviously this is a relatively new problem that is accompanied by the advent and proliferation of new technologies and, ultimately, I think it is a problem that the courts will have to address. “
Police often collect a large amount of information from an individual’s cell phone without physically unlocking it, especially if the user backs up their phone data to the Internet. In other cases, text messages, photos and communication on encrypted applications can only be accessed directly from the phone.
The New Jersey Supreme Court is examining whether the police can force suspects to give up their passwords or unlock their phones as part of an investigation.
Prosecutors have designated Ozbilgen as a “person of interest” in the disappearance of Parze in mid-November as they sought to keep him in prison on charges of child pornography. By that time, Gramiccioni said, authorities had gathered “a lot” of evidence indicating that Ozbilgen was the killer of Parze, but they had not found a body and were awaiting other information, including stored documents on cell phones.
Ozbilgen has never been charged with the disappearance of Parze. He committed suicide on November 22, three days after his release. He left two suicide notes expressing fears of “life in prison” and raised issues with a “girl in the news”.
Gramiccioni said his investigators were blocked in several other cases in which they were unable to unlock the cell phones seized during the investigations. Authorities seized cell phones while investigating the murder of 23-year-old Jehadje McMillian and related shootings in Asbury Park and Neptune, New Jersey, last summer.
Five men have been charged in connection with the crimes, but authorities have no access to the six phones. Similar problems have emerged in other gunfire investigations.
“Does the mere possibility of accessing these phones play a role in ensuring safety and security in our communities? I think the answer is yes,” said Gramiccioni.
Gramiccioni said his office was spending tens of thousands of dollars in each case hiring outside companies to try to hack the phones.
These companies have limited success depending on the make and model of the phone and the security preferences of each user, he said. It can take months.
Ed Parze, Stephanie’s father, said that the delays faced by police in obtaining potential evidence from smartphones were “ridiculous”.
“It is far too long when you are dealing with missing persons,” he said. “They play with the lives of people here.”
Apple and law enforcement have been stuck in an impasse over accessing iPhones since 2014, when the company boosted its encryption technology so that even the company itself couldn’t unlock their phones.
In 2016, the FBI asked the company to create specialized software to unlock the iPhone of one of the perpetrators of a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, last December, which killed 14 people.
Apple refused, arguing that the government’s request would force the company to undermine its own privacy protections and potentially allow dangerous software to fall into the hands of cybercriminals or authoritarian governments like China.
“The US government asked us for something we just don’t have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They asked us to create a backdoor for the iPhone, “wrote Apple CEO Tim Cook in an open letter in response to the FBI. “It would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks – from restaurants to banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find this acceptable. “
The “backdoor” demanded by law enforcement is “exactly what hackers and other governments are looking for” when they try to break into a smartphone and steal personal information, said Megan Iorio, Lawyer at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a non-profit organization focused on privacy issues related to emerging technologies.
The case was referred to court when the FBI dropped its file, revealing that an outside company had helped the authorities unlock the phone.
Attorney General William Barr publicly urged Apple to open the iPhones used by a Saudi Air Force cadet who shot and killed three American sailors at a Naval Air Station in Florida in December.
Apple has said it regularly assists the FBI in conducting sensitive investigations, and that there are ways for law enforcement to collect data from its phones without getting into the encryption software.
Privacy advocates and some tech experts said law enforcement demand was different from a traditional search warrant, as smartphones hold much more and very different potential evidence than a home or a bank account.
“They are asking for new information that did not exist before,” said Iorio. “It exposes information that is really close to the content of our minds to law enforcement with very little work on the part of law enforcement.”
The request would indeed dictate to a private company how it could design and secure its products, according to experts. Hannah Bloch-Wehba, assistant professor of law at the University of Drexel who studies privacy and cybersecurity issues, said the debate is really a struggle for control between government and big tech companies.
“These are the roles and responsibilities of these companies, which hold such incredible powers that they now determine the results of criminal investigations,” she said.
