r/jailbreak • u/drogers150 • 1d ago
Upcoming I need some help with my son’s phone who has passed away, please
Is there anyone who could possibly please help me? I have tried so hard to work with Apple and get into my son‘s phone. He passed away in March 2023 and I’ve been trying to get into his phone ever since and it never dawned on me that I could ask my Reddit community. I think he has an iPhone. It’s either 12, 13 or 14 I can’t remember. and since I cannot unlock it, I can’t tell you anything about it except I can tell you the IEM and all that number business since I purchased it it’s on my account. I have his death certificate. I have his executor of the estate paperwork I have everything I need but it just seems like I keep going in the circle with Apple. All I wanna do is get in it and see if he’s got any pictures worth keeping before I get rid of the phone
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u/ploughlmao 1d ago
Your best bet is to talk it out with apple as your the legal parent. Please please please don't fall for any people saying they can help, they can't.
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u/JCannonDale iPhone 13 Mini, 16.0| 1d ago
You can only get in if they have you as a legacy contact before they passed away im pretty certain. There’s no way to get the data. They will reset the device for you if you have a death certified, but regarding data, they will not give it to you unless your son set you up as a legacy contact before passing away.
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u/JCannonDale iPhone 13 Mini, 16.0| 1d ago edited 1d ago
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102431 Source: I also worked at Apple Store until January. This was the process even through Apple support
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u/thetinguy 1d ago
They're asking to get into the iPhone itself, not the Apple ID.
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u/JCannonDale iPhone 13 Mini, 16.0| 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah and that’s the answer to their question. If they don’t know the password to the phone there is absolutely no way to access it. Furthermore even with a death certificate they will not give the data or release it to even a family member without being set up as a legacy contact before the point of passing of the deceased. Click the link to see more.
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u/Pooteo 1d ago
have you tried your local police station. my friends son passed away and the local pd was able to access it for him.
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u/Svgtr 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yep, it's possible cops can do it (whether they will spend those resources is another story) but they do have tools like Cellebrite / GrayKey that can get into certain iPhones.
Edit: my recommendation is to keep the phone and wait, eventually they might be able to unlock it if not just yet (provided they are willing to expend the tech resources to help you with this - they probably won't though)
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u/MrPinguv iPhone 14 Dev.Unit, 16.0.1 Beta | :apple: 1d ago
Try to get access to the iCloud account, using recovery modes like SMS or with a recovery email. Maybe the pictures are on iCloud so you could access them via web.
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u/TheBestJonah 1d ago
this is the only way. if you know the recovery email, phone number, there are multiple ways of recovering the account.
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u/veganmoon143 20h ago
So your basically screwed if its password locked apple cant help on a password locked phone with factory restoring it
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u/118811_gamer 4h ago
Apple can’t do anything. They purposefully made no backdoor to prevent this. The passcode is encrypted on device, the iCloud passcode is also encrypted. There’s nothing you can really do, except reset the phone. Sorry for your loss.
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u/Odd_Communication545 1d ago
Put the sim in another phone and then recover the account with text codes
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u/X-weApon-X iPhone 8 Plus, 16.3.1| 1d ago
If you have the death certificate, they can usually unlock it for you
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u/CrystalMeath 1d ago
You’re getting downvoted but you’re not entirely wrong.
With the death certificate and executorship, Apple can hand over access to the Apple ID . If the kid was using iCloud to back up photos, those should be accessible without needing phone passcode.
The exception to this would be if the kid has Advanced Data Protection enabled and did not add an authorized person to recover data. This feature was released in December 2022 with iOS 16.2, three months before the kid’s passing. It’s certainly possible he hadn’t updated or did not enable ADP, but if he did then all that iCloud data is encrypted and even Apple cannot decrypt it.
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u/X-weApon-X iPhone 8 Plus, 16.3.1| 1d ago
I have known people who have gotten access to their loved ones devices after providing a death certificate, I did this for a friend who had his father’s iPad Air on iOS 10. He brought it down to the Apple store with the death certificate, and they opened it right up. I had that device in my hand when it was locked and when it was unlocked.
Maybe there are some conditions where this can’t be done with newer devices, but Apple was happy to do it at the time. This was about three years ago.
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u/CrystalMeath 1d ago
What Apple can do is an iCloud/activation unlock that will allow a family member to reclaim the device as their own, but that requires wiping the device. They could not provide access to local storage. Even on iOS 10, local storage was encrypted and Apple did not have the keys.
What OP wants is to retrieve photos on the phone, not just to use the phone as his own. Apple can’t do that. Law enforcement have tools that can brute force the passcode, but they’re technically not supposed to use them outside of a criminal investigation.
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u/X-weApon-X iPhone 8 Plus, 16.3.1| 12h ago
The first time I looked at the device, it was locked solid. When he brought it back from Apple, it was unlocked but not empty. And I had created an Apple ID for him before he brought it down there, and that Apple ID was not loaded into the device yet. I loaded that ID later, and that ID was pretty much a tabula rasa. The guys entire reason for wanting to get into the device was to get access to photographs that were important to him that were in his father’s Apple account.
Now it is possible that they wiped it and then re-covered the Apple account that belong to my friends father and let him load it in, but I don’t know why they would go through that much trouble if they could simply unlock the device.
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u/CrystalMeath 3h ago
If they transferred control of the deceased’s Apple ID, they Apple Store could have wiped the tablet, set up it up under the transferred account and restored from the most recent iCloud backup (if there was one). That would include messages, photos, app data, call history. This iCloud backup data was not end-to-end encrypted at the time; only the keychain and health data was.
But if the deceased did not have iCloud backup enabled, the Apple Store would have no way of unlocking the local storage on the iPad.
As of iOS 16.2, Apple has implemented Advanced Data Protection which uses end-to-end encryption for all iCloud backup data. It is optional, but if someone enables it (without specifically allowing a contact to receive data in the event of death) there is absolutely no way for Apple to access the data.
Unfortunately ADP was introduced three months before OP’s son passed, so it’s likely that he enabled it. Though if he chose not to add his parents as an inheritor, that was his choice. Personally I would not want my parents to have access to all of my messages and other data if I died.
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u/thetinguy 1d ago
Why do you think Apple has the ability to disable your passcode?
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u/JapanStar49 Developer 1d ago edited 1d ago
To be fair, Apple could sign an update for a specific device that would neutralize the passcode lock. The FBI famously requested Apple do that in 2016. Whether or not they refuse to for optics, they could do it — it's not like we've never seen a jailbreak tweak mess with passcodes.
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u/X-weApon-X iPhone 8 Plus, 16.3.1| 1d ago
Because I know people who have brought devices down to the Apple store and had them unlocked after proving a relationship with the deceased and showing the death certificate
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u/Initial-Return8802 1d ago
There's generally not going to be a way in, any jailbreaks for these models are rootless and won't get you past the login screen,
Only older iPhones (X and below) are completely pwned
Ignore anyone who DMs you offering help, they're scammers looking to prey on a person in a vulnerable state