alt Hacker NewsI see no indication that anybody is arguing that they should not have deleted the images in question, and the police argument appears to have been more about making sure that all contact information across various apps was deleted anyway. The arguments are a) does that mean all the data on the phone needed to be deleted? (Doubtful) b) does that mean that none of the data on the phone could reasonably be extracted first? (doubtful)
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ktm5j • yesterday at 7:58 PM
Well another response from a victims perspective: life is hard. He didn't have to break the law, hurting someone in the process. He can deal with the consequences, because we sure have to.
I could see an argument for the phone owner being able to request specific data off the phone, that the police could individually screen before returning to him and wiping the phone.
However if the ultimate goal is to make sure no CSAM or victim info is accidentally returned to the predator, the phone is ultimately going to have to be wiped. There are probably some data extraction companies that could make a pretty confident claim to have removed everything, but it'd be very difficult to verify.