NYPD

A proposed bill now in committee in the New York State Senate could give NY police officers the ability to plug smartphones into a ‘textalyzer’ following a motor vehicle accident. The device would read data from the phone to determine whether or not the driver had been texting or otherwise using the phone at the time of the crash.

ArsTechnica reports that Cellebrite, the Israeli company believed to have cracked the San Bernardino iPhone, is developing the technology required for the checks. Such checks without a warrant would normally violate the Fourth Amendment right to privacy, but Cellebrite believes it has a solution to that …

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The battle between the FBI and Apple continues to be played out in the media. On the same day that Apple SVP Craig Federighi said that the FBI wanted to create a weakness that could be used by hackers and criminals, NYPD’s head of counter-terrorism weighed in during a radio interview. The Daily News quotes John Miller accusing Apple of providing aid to murderers, among other things.

I still don’t know what made [Apple] change their minds and decide to actually design a system that made them not able to aid the police. You are actually providing aid to the kidnappers, robbers and murderers.

He cited the same quote used by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance during the Congressional hearing to support this contention, that a criminal described iOS 8 as ‘a gift from God’ …

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Thefts of Apple products made up 18 percent of all grand larcenies in New York City last year, reports the WSJ, citing NYPD figures. Of the 47,000 grand larcenies occuring in the city last year, 8,465 involved Apple products.

Many of the thefts happen on public transportation, where most people are buried in their devices and aren’t paying attention to their surroundings, said Joseph Giacalone, a retired New York Police Department detective. “It’s easy pickings,” he said … 
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