“A heartbroken family were unable to give their dead son a fitting send-off because Apple refused to unlock the iPad containing his funeral wishes,” Ekin Karasin reports for The Daily Mail.
“Liam Wright, 18, who died of bone cancer in December, had noted his last wishes on the tablet because he couldn’t bear to talk about it in person with his family,” Karasin reports. “But his relatives, of Brotton, North Yorkshire, were forced to have the service without knowing what he wanted – because Apple reportedly would not unlock the device after a software update.
“Liam’s sister Kerry Lamb explained that they knew Liam had made a few notes about the service on his iPad. ‘He hadn’t want to speak about it – we knew he was dying and he knew he was dying – but it was not a conversation he wanted to have,’ she told the Daily Mirror,” Karasin reports. “The family asked Liam for the code to his tablet but he was too ill to respond, which is why they contacted the media firm. Apple did not help and – when asked a second time – refused to unlock it unless the family sent them a death certificate and solicitor’s letter which cost them £120, Ms Lamb claimed. She claimed Apple then told them they had not sent the relevant information and now want a court order costing them £360.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hopefully, Apple can resolve this issue while maintaining their strong focus on privacy.
Apple refuses? Sounds like they just want a little paperwork. Sheesh
(Apple) Computer says no
Nice one Josh. 👍🏻👍🏻
People really should start thinking ahead. Just like a will with a lawyer, people need to leave their digital passwords also. Security is for your safety. Apple is just protecting your digital information.
Yeah I was thinking why couldn’t the kid have simply given the password in advance or removed it altogether?
A smart phone is not the place for a person to have the only copies of precious photos, last will, burial request or other personal data that exists no where else. Remember to talk to people, friends and especially family and leave a paper trail.
Lack of planning by one individual is not the fault of someone else. There are countless stories like this of people who didn’t follow through with will’s, financial situations or after life wishes.
This doesn’t sound like it was a sudden illness so someone should have taken responsibility. It’s NOT Apple’s responsibility.
I disagree. All minors make dumb decisions and obviously the family had more important things to do than worry about digital rights management. As far as I’m concerned, Apple should be forced by law to give parents the option of accessing their children’s devices at any time. After death, it’s a no brainier. A death certificate should be all it takes for any family member to unlock a device. That should be a law. The dead don’t care about secrets.
I know everyone here is a tech savvy responsible parent but Apple is not doing enough to help the average parent be more effectively involved in parenting in the digital world. Hence a generation of haters and whiners, antisocial/passive aggressive in public and backstabbing online. Giving parents the tools to access their children’s ios gadgets is a no brainier. Do the right thing Apple.
18 is not a minor
This may sound cold, believe me I don’t mean it to. But it’s incredibly irresponsible of the family to know that someone they care about and love is putting their last wishes somewhere, and to not discuss how to retrieve these wishes from that location, this is on them, not Apple. No one would go after a safe manufacturer for a loved one leaving a will in a safe, locked up.
What’s next? Suing a car company because you locked your keys inside?
You can force open a car or order a new key.
So, no.
But you would still have to pay for the new key or pay for the damage to the car for breaking in. Apple is asking the equivalent of either. “You want us to break into someone else’s computing device (iPad), so get a court order to protect us from liability and pay our people their wages for doing the work!’
Clearly this is a situation where Apple’s interests would be much better served by sending an employee to assess the situation and then assist the family at a time of great stress rather than imposing a legal requirement on a grieving family
Not legal, technical. Encryption means that. And it ONLY works if you can’t unencrypt it.
If you can get data off of an encrypted phone, then why encrypt in the first place?
Maybe he didn’t want them to have the password
That’s a good point. There’s a lot more on a device. And Apple needs to respect privacy of the device owner as primary (even if now deceased), not the wishes of relatives.
I sympathize with the parents but privacy is privacy, if the son had wished access for the family after his death he should have arranged it.
It says right in the article that the son did not want to talk about it, so that’s about it for me, though the details might be different at the end of the day privacy is privacy.
Even as a cynic, I can’t put this on Apple.
Censorship on the other hand…..
Sho
My condolences to the family.
but I wonder what Apple could have done differently legally. I’m not a lawyer but I think without a court order Apple couldn’t have broken into the tablet because how does Apple know what was the person’s last wishes, maybe it was to keep secrets hidden away? Legally could Apple have acted only with the families word without a court order?
I believe that your comment is particularly applicable because Liam was 18…a legal adult with the right to privacy. Liam’s death may have occurred more quickly that expected, but that does not place the burden of his decision to keep his thoughts private on Apple.
In my family, for example, I try to get my children to add their best and most important photos to the shared iPhoto library. I strongly suspect that they will appreciate those photos later when they may have otherwise lost them for good. It is nice to know that I have captured some key memories for the future.
Apple is wrong, help out this family.
This is another case of Apple maintaining their security theatre beyond the wishes of their customers – the average user wants reasonable security – not NSA encryption – and (if you chooser to use Apple) forces them into an “all or none” modality – I don’t want to burn my house down simply because I lost my keys – most users don’t either – It is high time that Apple develop a reasonable security unlock procedure for their phones and user’s data.
I am the custodian of a good friend’s 1Password password, in which is stored not only all of their passwords, but a good deal of text information as well. (And if they ever decide that I should no longer be the custodian, all they have to do is change the password.)
I recommend this course of action to everyone.
It is entirely possible this individual did NOT want his family to see his information. Why did he have a passcode? To protect against spying nurses? Why didn’t he tell his family? How did they use his device to “also take pictures” if they didn’t have that passcode? Maybe he told someone else his funeral desires, but the family isn’t listening to that person. That is not unusual in such circumstances: family are always certain they know better than friends. Maybe he treated the device as a diary, and didn’t want someone to read it.
Do people have an inherent right to privacy, or are all “skeletons in the closet” exposed upon death? Society needs to answer that basic question and wave aside this sentimental crap that tries to sway public opinion.
My devices have passcodes and everyone in my family knows them, as well as, the Apple ID passwords, etc. I trust my family, and I am quite aware my life can end in a blink of an eye.
Think ahead and have a plan how others move forward after your death. OR just be someone wailing, tearing hair, gnashing teeth, and complaining that someone else won’t make things better for you. After all, a member of the family just died, and SOMEONE MUST BE TO BLAME!