Anyone techy know how to help please?

[Hairyhat]

Posting here for traffic. My friend found an iPhone 11. Posted the Home Screen photo (looked like the owner) on numerous sites, fb, local sites, lost n found etc. Contacted the police to ask if they still accepted lost property and filed report. Police have to crush phones due to gdpr rules nowadays so after a month (of trying to reunite the owner with the phone) was advised it belongs to the finder.
My friend and the police officer assume that the owner lost the phone and immediately claimed on their insurance therefore recovering everything from iCloud due to a couple of factors.

1. The phone was found in a remote beauty spot that should only have been accessible to locals during lockdown.
2. No one has rung the phone despite my friend keeping it charged and asking all the normal things like "hey Siri phone home" etc. And trying the emergency contacts route.

So now my question is, can this phone be unlocked and reused (my friend wants to gift it to someone with a very old phone who is in need of an upgrade but can't afford it). We can get past the home screen unlock code but it then says the phone is only allowed to be used by the Apple ID it is registered to. Can this be bypassed? Or, is there a way to let the person who lost the iPhone know we have their phone? (It says they have set up find my iPhone on it). I feel they might be worried about trying to get it back because they broke lockdown rules. We would be happy to just reunite them with their phone. It seems such a waste of a good phone. Thanks for reading and sorry if this info is available online but all the avenues we have tried so far seem to just assume you already own the phone.

The owner would need to wipe the phone remotely via find my iPhone before it can be unlocked.

Also if it can't be reunited with it's owner then I think my friend wouldn't mind paying to unlock it for the person who is in need of a new phone but we have no idea if the sites claiming to unlock phones are genuine or not. A recommendation would be most welcome.

Thanks @Hadjab but we can't find the owner. If they have find my iPhone in their phone is there a way to tell them we have it?

That phone is dead I fear

As apple won’t unlock the ID and you won’t be able to without their apple password

The unlocking refers to the phone network , and it’s genuine
So 3 , Vodafone etc

But you can only do that once the Apple ID has been wiped

You could try and recycle it with gecko mobile , as they will use for parts

@Hairyhat 'Police have to crush phones due to gdpr rules nowadays so after a month (of trying to reunite the owner with the phone) was advised it belongs to the finder'

Absolute nonsense. The police do not 'crush phones' and would not advise anyone that mobile phone containing someone else's personal data is simply now the property of your friend to do with as she wishes.

Take the phone to the police station, physically give it to them, and leave it alone.

I found an iPhone about 2 weeks ago. I went for an early morning walk and it was just lying in a turning circle at the end of a very long cul-de-sac. I fully expected it to have been run over and crushed but it was fine. There was no-one around and I assumed it had just been dropped by an early morning jogger.
I took it home and put it on charge. I tried basic pass codes but they didn't work. Could't access it using Siri.
I don't use Facebook but managed to get into a local group and I posted that had found the iPhone.
After about an hour, it rang! It was the owner using her husband's mobile. She lived right by where I found it so I told her I would pop back with it later, which I did. She was very grateful and gave me some free range eggs [she keeps chickens!] and a box of chocolates. Turns out the phone had been lying in the middle of the road since the previous evening! She was so lucky it hadn't been run over.

If they have enabled find my iPhone, you'll never be able to wipe it. It's a dead phone!

I don't understand how the police cannot find the owner via the SIM. Surely the SIM has the logo on so Virgin/EE whatever, then that SIM with its unique reference number on it is registered to an owner. The police just need to ring the network provider.

The police are not a lost property service. You can't legally unlock it from the Apple ID that's it's attached to. Ask Apple what you should do with it.

Probably best to get cash from a mobile recycling site like mazooma and put it towards a new phone for your friend

Police have to crush phones due to gdpr rules nowadays so after a month (of trying to reunite the owner with the phone) was advised it belongs to the finder.
Eh?