Court Says Police Can’t Force Suspects to Turn Over Passwords
upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for Runaway1956_.
Court says police can't force suspects to turn over passwords:
The highest court in Pennsylvania has ruled that the state's law enforcement cannot force suspects to turn over their passwords that would unlock their devices.
The state's Supreme Court said compelling a password from a suspect is a violation of the Fifth Amendment, a constitutional protection that protects suspects from self-incrimination.
It's not an surprising ruling, given other state and federal courts have almost always come to the same conclusion. The Fifth Amendment grants anyone in the U.S. the right to remain silent, which includes the right to not turn over information that could incriminate them in a crime. These days, those protections extend to the passcodes that only a device owner knows.
But the ruling is not expected to affect the ability by police to force suspects to use their biometrics - like their face or fingerprints - to unlock their phone or computer.
Because your passcode is stored in your head and your biometrics are not, prosecutors have long argued that police can compel a suspect into unlocking a device with their biometrics, which they say are not constitutionally protected. The court also did not address biometrics. In a footnote of the ruling, the court said it "need not address" the issue, blaming the U.S. Supreme Court for creating "the dichotomy between physical and mental communication."
Peter Goldberger, president of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, who presented the arguments before the court, said it was "fundamental" that suspects have the right to "to avoid self-incrimination."
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