Can the police see details of what’s on a phone

[User2235422]

By tracking it or just it’s location? Watching a crime drama and just curious what they can actually see without the phone being there.

Following. I was wondering this the other day - randomly while watching Hunted (yes, I know it is just tv and not real!) they could see what the text message said, not just that here had been a text iyswim? like on your itemised phone bills. Makes you wonder if the phone companies can also see

I believe that the police can't but the phone provider can and is asked to assist the police. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong

I don't think anyone except a hacker can tap into a random phone at any one time to see what a message says. Police can get details of the phone company if they have a warrant for that info.

Happy to be corrected on this BTW

Decades ago when I used to defend/prosecute criminal cases we would get print outs of text messages from phone providers. Police needed a warrant.

Then all the crims switched to WhatsApp and there’s no ability to access those.

Mobile phone providers can be contacted to 'ping' the phones location, providing its on and its not an exact location but a pretty good radius. Can send messages that if you click the link, sends back a location aswell. Has to be an EXTREMELY good reason to, high risk missing person for example. Can download phones if seized, even deleted stuff. Cant do much about encrypted stuff though.

They'd be really disappointed if they read my texts.

I know the police had access to my dd's phone. Think they looked at texts and location.

They probably ask people like the former news of the world journalists.

@PegasusReturns I thought WhatsApp could be accessed?? I'm sure the prosecution had WhatsApp messages as evidence in the Oscar Pistorius case?

One of the first high-profile South African cases in which access to WhatsApp messages by authorities could be traced is the murder trial of Paralympian, Oscar Pistorius. The prosecuting authority issued a subpoena to WhatsApp Inc. in the US for the retrieval of data contained in messages exchanged with the murder victim, Reeva Steenkamp.

This subpoena came before the introduction of end-to-end encryption security functionality by WhatsApp in April 2016. As such, WhatsApp had no legally defensible reason for failing to comply with the subpoena as it was in control/possession of the decryption key. If the request had been made after the introduction of end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp would likely have refused on the basis that it could not comply as it cannot give information that is not in its possession.

Source:
www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=65cbea53-e902-4107-ba04-438a2fa54629

Captain Francois Moller said he was able to access some 35,000 pages worth of messages between the couple (this was before end-to-end encryption).

You would not get anything off my phone, I delete most messages I send and get. My DP and DD cannot be bothered so you could raid theirs

Off topic, but what is the Hunted about and if it's any good, where can I watch it?

4 on demand - hunted/celeb hunted
The players have to try and go off grid and make it to a rendezvous point while hunters with police experience/ex-intelligence etc pursue them by looking at close friends/family/number plates/call tracing and CCTV.

If you are not in the UK so cannot access channel 4, series 3 is on the tube of you

Forget that, it's blocked. Tptb are onto us!

There’s a few things police can do with phones.

If you ring 999 From a mobile, they receive a ROUGH(must stress that) location.
They can run subs checks which will provide info about who the phone is registered to if it’s a contract phone.
They can cell site (this is only done for high risk jobs) which will provide a rough location m. This isn’t exact, it depends on the proximity of phone masts.
If a person is arrested, they can seize the phone and download it to read messages (including from aps like Facebook and WhatsApp).

Garcia on Criminal Minds can hack messages!

You would not get anything off my phone, I delete most messages I send and get

Can still be retrieved I’m afraid!

OP - yes the police can by requesting it from the network provider, but need to have solid reasons for doing it (you’d need to be significantly involved in serious crime) and they need a warrant.

@GlummyMcGlummerson glitter is correct it could be done before end to end encryption but not any more.

The same applies to iMessages and those sent on platforms like telegram. They cannot be retrieved unless you have a copy on your phone and the police obtain a warrant to search your phone. Which in itself is tricky because even if they do you’d have to give up the passcode for many modern phones to be searched.

With good old fashioned texts it doesn’t matter whether you delete them or not - the network systems retain a copy.

Can still be retrieved I’m afraid!
Texts yes but whatsapp messages since 2016 like that, they were gone...
How can you access deleted whatsapp conversations without a decryption key?

Captain Francois Moller said he was able to access some 35,000 pages worth of messages between the couple (this was before end-to-end encryption).

35,000 pages of WhatsApp messages? 35,000 pages?

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/oscar-pistorius-trial-athlete-scared-girlfriend-reeva-steenkamp-9212563.html

Copied and pasted from the independent. 90% were loving apparently.
But you are right that it must be an error, somewhere else was reported 1000 messages were extracted. Don't know, I have deleted 100 at a time thinking about it so over a year would be 35600 messages if I was a stalker. They were together 3 months.
Sorry, was posting at 5am and independent usually reliable