• deweydecibel@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      At the point that they have ordered you to unlock the phone, an investigation has begun, so if you do anything to the data on that phone, it could be considered destroying evidence.

      Kind of in the same way that if the cops are searching your home and you try to flush some cocaine, they would consider that destroying evidence. But if you flushed cocaine the moment you saw cops on your street, that wouldn’t count as destroying evidence, because there was no investigation at the time.

      • deweydecibel@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        You don’t want to wipe it, you just want to lock it. Wiping it in that moment would get you in trouble.

        You do not have to help them access incriminating information about you, but you cannot destroy potentially incriminating information after they’ve started doing their search…