A California policer offers has been charged with Theft and Copying of Computer Data after looking through the photos on a female DUI suspect’s iPhone, and sending nudes to himself and two other officers. He is also charged with the same offense in regard to a second woman.
CNET reports that the suspect unlocked her phone to look up a contact she wanted to call to advise of her arrest. With the iPhone unlocked, Officer Sean Harrington of the California Highway Patrol in Dublin, California, sent as many as six nude images to himself and two colleagues.
On Friday, Harrington was charged with two felonies. One pertained to the original complainant, only named as Jane Doe No. 1 in court documents. The second involves a different woman, named as Jane Doe No. 2 […]
A text message obtained during investigations of the incident has Harrington texting another officer: “Her body is rocking.
The CNET report says that “the incident only came to light because 23-year-old Jane Doe No. 1 had her iPhone synced to Apple’s iCloud,” with Gizmodo adding that Jane Doe No.1 spotted the messages on her iPad.
Apple’s iCloud actually uncovered the plot since the suspect synced messages from her smartphone with her iPad. She soon noticed that photos had been sent to a number she didn’t recognise.
Harrington has resigned from the California Highway Patrol, and if found guilty faces a maximum sentence of three years and eight months in jail.
A Virginia court recently ruled that suspects cannot be compelled to hand over their passcodes to police, but that fingerprints can be used to access phones.
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The title is a little confusing. Until I read the specifics, I thought the cop stole the photos with the help of iCloud.
Agreed.
It’s great that Apple has finally set these types of warnings on the iPhone. When I “find My iPhone” on my wife’s phone, she gets a note that someone has “tracked” her. As I’m not stalking her, she is fine with it. But, without those e-mails to her, if someone hacked her iTunes account password, they could be tracking her and she would be totally unaware.
As far as this asshole cop – I hope they jail and fine his ass. He has no right to search a DUI suspects phone for photos.
With a warrant he has every right to search a suspects phone…
What a creep… there are a billion places you can get photos of a “rockin body” that want their photo out there without losing your career. Thanks for serving and protecting!
He is quite the idiot but how did he know she’d have nude photos on her phone? How long did he have her phone that she didn’t notice and how many pictures did he have to sift through to find the naughty ones?
Forget about the fact that he was looking through her phone without a warrant or probable cause, this guy is a class-A creep for going through her personal life. Nude photos or not NO officer should EVER be prowling through your photos without a justifiable reason.
What relevance would those photos have against her DUI? Is this something he did often? Are other officers looking through people’s phones without permission?
Time to write our congressmen/women to ensure that people aren’t being taken advantage of during these types of situations. I don’t want ANYONE drinking and driving but that doesn’t mean they give up every inalienable right when they’re arrested. I’m pretty sure this would fall under illegal search and seizure. Matter of fact, it does:
“The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause.”
(source: Wikipedia)
Even if she was so intoxicated that she told him to look that’s still a violation of her rights as she’s clearly not in her right mind and if that were the case he should be a decent enough person not to do it.
Hopefully this case doesn’t end with the officer getting convicted. The entire police force in that area needs to be questioned about what they do with people’s personal belongings in all situations.
Amen Mark!
It’s definitely not cool and he deserves what he gets. That being said…..
He should have used AirDrop.
He wouldn’t have a brilliant feature like Airdrop, he’s too stupid to own an iPhone, probably an Android user. HEY YO! (rimshot zing)
:-)
There is iMessage for Android now¿
philboogie…. it was a joke.
But if you want to be so serious, the story says he also sent photos to his buddies, didn’t explain from where or whose number she didn’t recognize on her iPad. One of his buddies could have an iPhone.
The horse is dead now…