The short answer is: no, they are not gone forever. However, the process of retrieving them is much more difficult, and it may not be possible to retrieve all of the data. When you delete a photo from your phone, the photo is actually just moved to a different location on the memory card.
Mobile phones are everywhere nowadays. Smartphones especially have made our lives easier in a multitude of ways, but they also store huge amounts of data about us and what we do. As such, mobile phones are often used in trials as key pieces of evidence. If you’re facing criminal charges that involve a mobile phone being used as evidence against you, it’s important to understand what the police can and cannot retrieve from your device. In this article, we’ll explain what you need to know about deleted data and how it might be used by the police. We also answer some of the most common questions we get about deleted data being used in evidence.
When can the police confiscate your devices?
If a police officer asks you to hand over your mobile phone, you probably believe that they have the power to do that. After all, most people do want to cooperate with the police and assume that police officers are operating within the confines of the law themselves.
That said, because of the highly private nature of mobile phone devices and the data contained therein, there are special conditions around when the police can demand you hand over your phone.
As a general rule, if you are arrested, the police have the right to seize your phone. However, if you are stopped and searched on the street, and not yet arrested, they do not have such a right. The only exception to this is if you are suspected of terrorism or child sex offences, and even then the police can only confiscate your devices if they have obtained the necessary paperwork authorising such a seizure.
How long does it take for police to check devices?
Once the police have your devices, they will begin to go through the data stored on them. This can be a time-consuming process, and it is not uncommon for it to take several weeks or even months for the police to finish their analysis. Actually making an image of your phone’s data takes about two hours, but analysing all that data is what takes such a long time.
How long it takes for the police to check devices depends on a number of factors, such as how many devices they have to go through and how much data is stored on each one. It also depends on the type of data being analysed. For example, text messages are generally quicker to analyse than emails.
What type of data can the police access from your phone?
The police can access a variety of different types of data from your mobile phone, including:
Your contact list
Your call history
Your text messages
Your email messages
Your internet browsing history
Any photos or videos stored on your device
Any social media messages you have sent or received
In some cases, the police may also be able to access data that has been deleted from your phone. However, this is not always the case, and it depends on a number of factors, such as what type of data was deleted and how long ago it was deleted.
Can police download deleted text messages?
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Text messages are one of the most commonly used pieces of mobile phone evidence in criminal cases. This is because they can provide valuable insights into what a person was thinking or doing at a particular time.
You may think that when you have deleted a text message, it is gone forever. But that is not actually the case. In many cases, the police are still able to download text messages from your phone, even when you have deleted them.
If the police cannot obtain data from your phone, they might try to get the data from your mobile phone service provider instead. Companies that keep this data typically store it on their servers for between 3 days and 3 months.
Different types of phones will retain deleted data for different periods of time. Exactly what is retained also depends on how quickly you replace data on your phone. When you delete something on your phone, the phone actually just schedules that data to be overwritten by another piece of data when it is created; it doesn’t always immediately delete it.
How far back can text messages be retrieved?
In general, text messages can be retrieved from a phone service provider for up to three months. As for retrieving data from the phone itself, that depends on the type of phone you have and how full your phone’s storage is. If your phone’s storage is almost full, then texts may only be retrievable for a shorter period of time.
How far back can police look at text messages?
Your phone’s memory will determine this. If you have a lot of memory and do not routinely delete your text messages, the police may be able to see everything you’ve received since you actually got the phone. If you have less memory and you do actively clear your messages, the police will be able to see less initially, but may still be able to retrieve the deleted data in their lab.
Are deleted texts really deleted?
We’ve already covered what happens if text messages are stored on your phone’s memory. But what about if they are stored on the SIM card instead? Are deleted texts really deleted if they are stored on a SIM?
When texts are stored on a SIM card, they are stored as small data files. Deleting a text message on your phone really just tells the phone to store the file in a different place and not show it to you anymore. In this sense, the data is no longer readable or accessible to the phone user, but it doesn’t actually disappear from the SIM card fully. It may be the case that that data file gets marked for overwriting by new data, or it may just sit hidden on the SIM card until accessed with forensic software. With more sophisticated tools, you can find and retrieve messages that were seemingly lost forever.
Can the police retrieve deleted WhatsApp messages?
WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, meaning that the police are unable to intercept and read WhatsApp messages. That being said, WhatsApp can still be compelled to share information on its servers for the purposes of criminal detection, investigation, and prevention by law enforcement. In this sense, the police may still be able to retrieve deleted WhatsApp messages, but it will be difficult for them to decipher that information without highly sophisticated software or WhatsApp’s cooperation, which may be hard to obtain.
Can police retrieve deleted videos?
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The answer to this question is the same as for text messages and WhatsApp messages: it depends on where the data is being stored. If the data is stored on your phone, then it may be possible for the police to retrieve it. However, if the data is stored on a cloud service or an external hard drive, then it will be much more difficult, if not impossible, for the police to retrieve it.
In conclusion, the answer to the question “Can the police access data deleted from a phone?” is: it depends. It depends on where the data is being stored and what type of data it is. However, with sophisticated software and equipment, it is possible for the police to retrieve deleted data from a phone.
Are permanently deleted photos gone forever?
The short answer is: no, they are not gone forever. However, the process of retrieving them is much more difficult, and it may not be possible to retrieve all of the data.
When you delete a photo from your phone, the photo is actually just moved to a different location on the memory card. The photo is not actually deleted until the memory card is overwritten with new data. This process can take a long time, depending on how often you use your phone and how full your memory card is.
If you have a full memory card, it will take longer for the photo to be overwritten and permanently deleted. However, if you regularly delete and add new photos to your phone, it is likely that the photo will be overwritten relatively quickly and permanently deleted.
There are some data recovery software programs that claim to be able to recover permanently deleted photos. However, these programs are not always successful, and they may only be able to retrieve a partial photo or certain data from the photo.
Where to get more help?
If you suspect that the police want to use mobile phone evidence against you, it is imperative that you get expert legal advice about your options. The police can ask a lot of questions, but you are not legally obliged to answer all of them. They may also seek to confiscate devices without the legal authority to do so. For more information on how the police handle mobile phone evidence, get in touch with the team at Stuart Miller Solicitors today. Our friendly and non-judgmental team have years of experience in this space and can advise on how to keep your data protected.
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Photo: Bii Photography
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