CLEARWATER, Fla. – Florida police have raised eyebrows by showing up at a funeral home and trying to use a dead man’s finger to access his phone, the Tampa Bay Times reports.

Victoria Armstrong was at Sylvan Abbey Funeral Home in Clearwater when two detectives showed up and held the hands of her fiance, Linus Phillip, to the fingerprint sensor on his phone.

“I just felt so disrespected and violated,” Armstrong says. The unlocking attempt failed, but police—who shot and killed Phillip in a gas-station clash last month, per WFLA—say the phone’s data could have helped in probing the man’s death and resolving a drug inquiry that includes Phillip.

The move also triggered debate about using a corpse to unlock a phone.

“While the deceased person doesn’t have a vested interest in the remains of their body, the family sure does, so it really doesn’t pass the smell test,” says a professor at Stetson University College of Law. “There’s a ghoulish component to it that’s troubling to most people.”



But police say they got Phillip’s phone within a 48- to 72-hour period when fingerprint access is allowed, and Florida law only states who is authorized to get rid of a dead person’s remains—not who has access to them.

So this will likely go to the courts, where judges aren’t always kind to the dead. “The law has been most cruel, really unforgiving to a dead person,” says another law professor. “It provides no entitlement or legal rights after death to a deceased person.”

LINK:http://wgntv.com/2018/04/24/florida-police-try-using-dead-mans-finger-to-unlock-cellphone/

If he had an Iphone x they could have just used his face, which would be interesting, if you are deceased, how the rights to privacy for your information such as a phone is handled, my guess is your right to privacy expires with your death.

However the phone would then be the property of your estate I believe and permission would come from the appointed executor,

Imagine the police then need to obtain a warrant to search the phone (which they may have done in this case).

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

“While the deceased person doesn’t have a vested interest in the remains of their body, the family sure does, so it really doesn’t pass the smell test,” says a professor at Stetson University College of Law.

Poor choice of words.



.

The time to get into the dead guy's phone should have been at the scene itself, or maybe the morgue, I would think, not at the funeral home a month later.

quote:

Originally posted by TigerDore:

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

“While the deceased person doesn’t have a vested interest in the remains of their body, the family sure does, so it really doesn’t pass the smell test,” says a professor at Stetson University College of Law.

Poor choice of words.

Well, the story is about somebody who was killed last month at a gas station and the story is about a funeral that took place close to April 22nd (publication date).

Either that or it's the 1 billionth poorly written story from the journalists paparazzi in the mainstream media.

quote:

posted 24.April.2018 4:28 PM Hide Post
If he had an Iphone x they could have just used his face, which would be interesting, if you are deceased, how the rights to privacy for your information such as a phone is handled, my guess is your right to privacy expires with your death.

The "right to privacy" as you said is more likely the 6th amendment rights protecting against unlawful search and seizure (without a warrant) and the 5th amendment rights of avoiding self incrimination which protects users from having to give up passwords to phones. Unlocking a phone is protected under such rights so long as the password protecting your phone is intellectual property like a word or number sequence.
however, the way the law is written, and courts backed up circa 2014, the fact that a fingerprint (or facial recognition) is not intellectual property, the police technically do not need a warrant to make you unlock your phone with a fingerprint or face.
I guess how this this article put it is that "a fingerprint in and of itself is not testimony."

There've also been a few more recent cases (2017) that came up in searches as well. So while it's a bit weird to go into a funeral home (not like they did it DURING the damn funeral, though. they just want to make it sound like that) I don't see that there's anything legally wrong with this. morally? ethically? should the law be changed? that's different.

The 4th covers searches, not the 6th.

I've often wondered about the possibility of doing this. Seems like it works in the movies.

I have no problem with this.

As long as they the po-leece axe the decedent if he/she has any objections first, and if no protestations are given, then proceed with the fingering of the phone.

I think it might have worked if they warmed the finger to body temp.

interesting concept that privacy expires when you do

I guess the logical question is why do we still have sealed files for politicians that are dead?

quote:

I think it might have worked if they warmed the finger to body temp.

Most funeral homes have a microwave in the lounge. Adapt and overcome.

Does facial recognition account for parlor and bloating?

I think it's fine so long as they Mirandize him first.

OP- what is your stance?

I did this myself at an overdose death scene.

Most States recognize that a deceased person has no 4th amendment rights as they’re immune from prosecution. Can’t put the dead in prison.....

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
I think it might have worked if they warmed the finger to body temp.

Finger print readers on most phones are capacitive and RF based, not thermal.