Skip to main content

Sphero Indi Is a Tiny Robotic Car That Helps Children Learn Programming

Warrants Required to Check Even the Lock Screen of a Suspect's Phone


Warrants Required to Check Even the Lock Screen of a Suspect's Phone

By Techtonic group

With the evolution of smartphones over the years, the tiny computers have become one big pot of data of the user. We store anything and everything in our smartphone nowadays. So, some times law enforcers might want to get their hands on these personal data in the name of investigation. Well, thanks to the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, the police generally need an official warrant to search a device. Now, a judge has ruled that not only unlocking the device will require a warrant, even looking at the lock screen without a warrant will be termed as unlawful.

The District Judge of the US District Court in Seattle recently passed this new rule in the light of a case involving an alleged robber and burglar. The man, Joseph Sam, was arrested back in May 2019 and was using an undisclosed Motorola device. At the time of his arrest, an officer got his hands on the man's phone and turned it on to check the lock screen of the device.

In another instance, the FBI took the same man's phone and turned it on to take a screenshot of the lock screen. The screenshot of the lock screen revealed only a name, "Streezy" that could have been evidence or a lead for the investigation.

However, Joseph's lawyer filed for a motion that the evidence was collected from the device, without an official warrant. So, this needed to be suppressed.

District Judge John Coughenour of the US District Court in Seattle agreed with the lawyer. According to him, although the police can go through suspects' phones without warrants in special circumstances, the FBI going through the lock screen without a warrant led Judge Coughenour to rule it as "unconstitutional".

In simpler words, the Judge ruled that the FBI turning on even the lock screen of the device can be termed as a "search". So, the law enforcers should have a warrant before pressing any button on a device of a suspect.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Instagram Parteners with Swiggy, Zomato to Let Resturant Add 'Food Order' Stickers in Stories

Instagram Parteners with Swiggy, Zomato to Let Resturant Add 'Food Order' Stickers in Stories By Techtonic group Instagram recently gave users the option to promote small (and local) businesses by placing a sticker in their Stories. Now, the company has partnered with two of India's renowned food delivery apps -  Swiggy and Zomato  - to bring a similar feature to the restaurant owners. It has debuted a new  'Food Order' sticker  that restaurants can include in their Stories to drive sales. The Coronavirus-led lockdown saw almost all restaurants and eateries shut shop for several days. And even when they opened, netizens have been wary to eat outside or order in due to hygiene concerns. Well, as restaurants open up in line with the WHO safety guidelines, they can now head to Instagram to find a new 'Food Orders' sticker in the Stories section. This new sticker is interactive and will  enable users to place food orders  simply by tapping on the sa...

Sphero Indi Is a Tiny Robotic Car That Helps Children Learn Programming

Robotic toys for learning are becoming more common in the market as kids turn more towards STEM learning. As a result, we’ve seen several modular and advanced robotic toys that are designed to help children learn the basic concepts of programming and problem-solving. And the Sphero indi is not that different. The Sphero indi Developed by renowned robotic-toy maker Sphero, the indi is essentially a toy car that helps children learn about the core concepts of problem-solving and logical thinking. The learning set comes with the indi, which the tiny robotic car, and a bunch of color-coded silicone-based tiles, designed to give the indi specific instructions. For instance, a green tile tells the car to move faster, a pink tile tells it to turn left, a yellow one instructs the car to drive slowly, and a red tile stops the car. So, the car comes equipped with a color sensor to detect the color of a tile over which it is driving and respond accordingly. Hence, using the Sph...

Apple Slams Tile After Being Accused of Violating EU Antitrust Laws

Apple Slams Tile After Being Accused of Violating EU Antitrust Laws By Techtonic group In a move that could further compound Apple's regulatory problems in Europe, the company is now facing allegations of monopolistic trade practices from fellow Silicon Valley tech firm,  Tile . In a letter sent to European competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, this week, Tile said that Apple was making it difficult for users to use its product with iPhones. According to the complaint, the Cupertino giant is favoring its own 'FindMy' application in violation of the region's antitrust regulations by selectively disabling features of the Tile tracking app. Apple's actions, the complaint alleges, are aimed at preventing the Tile app from working seamlessly with iPhones and iPads. The allegations come at a time when Apple is expected to launch  its own Tile-like tracking devices , expected to be called  Apple Tags . According to Tile's lawyer, Kirsten Daru, the ...