More: If I am arrested and the police can search my phone, do I have to provide the password.

One of the recurring questions I receive involves passwords for cell phones.  The question is:  if I am arrested and the police can search my phone, do I have to provide the password.  I answered the question very briefly on the EDD Blog.


Professor Gershowitz at the University of Houston has written a detailed law review article on this very subject:   “Password Protected? Can a Password Save Your Cell Phone From the Search Incident to Arrest Doctrine? 96 Iowa L. Rev. 1125 (2011).  The online version is here.  In the article he writes that the police "may request or even demand that an arrestee turn over his password without any significant risk of the evidence on the phone being suppressed under the Miranda doctrine or as a Fifth Amendment violation."


Professor Gershowitz is an early expert on the legal implication of smartphones.  His article is worth a read.

h

ttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1669403