According to the Sunday Herald, police in Scotland has been secretly hacking phones of the public to gather information.
This is done by using new technology that overrides passwords and firewalls to get access to all kind of data stored on a phone without letting the owner know of it.
According to reports, new changes in the rule means that police can get access to such data only after a warrant, but this report has sent shockwaves throughout the country.
A new device called kiosk was used in a pilot project that was kept secret. In this project, there were 18 officers, all trained to make use of the device to get access to data.
Kiosk, said to be of the same size as an iPad, has the ability to access all kind of data including text messages, passwords, contacts, browsing history, call records, and even encrypted conversations. Moreover, the device can even access deleted data.
While the technology is quite brilliant, it does have its limitations. You cannot take date from a specified date and must download all data to find what you need.
The trial was quite successful and included studying 375 phones and over 200 SIM cards. All the devices were said to belong to criminals, but it is not clear if they knew of the data being hacked.
Several groups are calling for a third party to overlook the matter so that the technology could not be misused. It is believed that the technology may soon be used by other countries as well to get access to data.
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