If the police feel you may have committed a crime, then you need to be aware of the range of tactics they may use to investigate you. One area they will almost certainly target is your cell phone. They might make this effort to access any of the following information and more:
Location: Modern phones often track where you are. This can have a lot of uses, such as helping you find a phone you have lost, helping a parent know where their child is, helping you navigate along a walking route or locate the nearest coffee shop. Some of that location history will be recorded, and the police may use it to try and show you were in the location where a crime or a meeting about a crime took place.
Call and message records: Crimes often involve more than one person, and anyone who has recently been contacted by someone who is under police suspicion may find themselves coming under suspicion, too. The police can sometimes make tenuous links and implicate people who had nothing to do with a crime just because there was contact.
Browser history: Maybe you have always had an interest in hunting and were thinking about buying a new rifle that shoots extra far. Even if you never went ahead with the purchase, the police might use the fact that the search shows up in your browser history to blame you for a recent shooting involving a long-range weapon. They might believe you went ahead and bought the weapon elsewhere having done that research on your phone.
Do I need to open my phone for the police?
The police get access to many people’s phone just by asking them. People think they have to open up their phone when they don’t. Learning more about your rights can help you avoid such potentially disastrous mistakes if you’re ever under police investigation.
