A phone has long since ceased to be used just to make calls. A smartphone is used to take pictures, communicate, surf the Internet or calculate the fastest route from A to B. As such, a smartphone also contains a lot of information that is nobody's business. This is why the smartphone can be locked with a PIN code. This keeps the stored data private.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For police and prosecutors, smartphones are potential treasure troves full of evidence. No wonder police ask the suspect for the PIN when making an arrest. A PIN can provide access to this potential evidence. However, the suspect is not obliged to give a PIN. He may -given the so-called nemo tenetur principle- not be forced to provide evidence against himself and therefore has the right to remain silent. This means that the police must (have) crack the phone by other means, and often the police succeed in doing so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But smarter phones are coming along and cracking them is becoming increasingly difficult. Technology companies also want to better protect their customers from hackers. Increasing opportunities to hack also lead to better security of phones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because phones are also harder for the authorities to crack, it was proposed to force suspects to hand over their PIN numbers, This so-called 'decryption order' was eventually not included in the Computer Crime Act III that came into force this year. Among other things, it was deemed contrary to the aforementioned prohibition on forcing anyone to provide criminal evidence against themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what about when a smartphone can be unlocked with a finger or facial scan? Can someone be required or even forced to put their finger on a screen or hold their face in front of the screen. The answer is 'yes'. The North Holland court ruled this year that placing a thumb, for example, is only a \"limited infringement\" of bodily integrity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In contrast, a person may not be forced to make an intellectual or mental effort such as naming a password or log-in code of a phone. Forcing someone to make an active contribution to their own conviction is going too far (for now). Another factor is that there does not necessarily have to be unwillingness if someone does not give their password. Someone can also simply have forgotten a password. This is another reason why it would be unreasonable to impose sanctions if a suspect does not give his password\/entry code. A judge can, however, include an unwillingness to give a password to the detriment of a defendant in sentencing considerations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Someone who would like to keep the data on his phone private even from the authorities would do well to continue using an \"old-fashioned\" code and not use modern (biometric) locking options, such as a fingerprint or Face ID. If a suspect does not want to give his password, he cannot be forced to do so. As a result, a password offers the best protection of private data on a smartphone for now. Except for not using a smartphone, that is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. D.M. Penn<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Een telefoon wordt al lang niet meer gebruikt om alleen mee te bellen. Een smartphone wordt gebruik om te fotograferen, te communiceren, te internetten of om de snelste route van A naar B te berekenen. Een smartphone bevat daarmee ook veel informatie die niemand wat aangaat. Daarom kan de smartphone worden vergrendeld met een pincode. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strafrecht"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}