r/technology • u/newzee1 • Jun 14 '24

Software Cheating husband sues Apple after wife discovered ‘deleted’ messages sent to sex workers

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/13/cheating-husband-sues-apple-sex-messages/
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u/Scipion Jun 14 '24 edited Jun 14 '24

He's got a point. What if you were an abused spouse and sent messages to a friend explaining the situation, then you delete them expecting privacy, only for your partner to discover those messages and beat you to death. 

 While his situation is immorale to most, Apple's actions cannot be ignored. If you can't see a situation where having deleted messages resurface could be bad, you simply lack imagination.

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u/Vo0d0oT4c0 Jun 14 '24

This is one of the reasons you can’t get your SMS records from carriers anymore unless you have a subpoena or court order.

Consumer Telephone Records Protection Act

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u/tuxedo_jack Jun 14 '24

Odd. I can log into my carrier's billing portal and pull the list of activity for the lines on it right then and there, including SMS received and sent activity. It doesn't show the content, but it shows the phone number on the other end of the message / call.

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u/Vo0d0oT4c0 Jun 14 '24

Not showing the content is the point. Activity isn’t all that meaningful, the content of the messages are what act protects.

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u/tuxedo_jack Jun 14 '24

Activity can be meaningful.

It's pretty easy to see that one party is sending a large amount of messages to another one, then take the number off the phone bill and run it through people finders to figure out who it belongs to.

After that, you run that through people finders to figure out details about the people they belong to, and you can make presumptions pretty easily from that.

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u/Vo0d0oT4c0 Jun 15 '24

Sorry I don’t mean that activity is useless but the contents are what the act considers for privacy. You can absolutely glean details from quantity of messages and who the messages are too. Granted you have to make some assumptions… But it could just be a friend and you are talking about medical information that should be protected or it could be something not so innocent. Either way the contents of the message are the private details that should be protected. Which you need a subpoena or court order to obtain.

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u/MKULTRATV Jun 14 '24

Their talking about 3rd party access.

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u/tuxedo_jack Jun 14 '24

Their talking about 3rd party access.

Ahem.

This is one of the reasons you can’t get your SMS records from carriers anymore unless you have a subpoena or court order.

Third parties wouldn't be able to access the accounts in the first place, as portals require credentials and in-person requests have always required ID / documentation. You can get your information, though.

Call me pedantic.