iPhone locked to owner

[Downhilltenago]

Any help would be appreciated. My wife’s dad passed away a month or so ago. He had an iPhone that his mom closed his T-Mobile account on after he died. She didn’t know his passcode for the phone. It’s a newer phone and now it has the locked to owner error when you try to get in it. Is there anyway to get around this? I’ve seen mobile sites that claim they can unlock it for “free” yet they ask for credit card information. I find that sketchy. Anyone had success unlocking a phone in this condition?

 

[DaveS86]

Most of those pay sites try to jailbreak the phone to get in. A call to Apple may help, along with a death certificate and proof of ownership may do it if you find a lenient Apple employee.

 

[laptech]

Apple will 'probably' help if you have the following a) proof of ownership (a purchase receipt), b) a death certificate and c) ID of the person who is wanting the iphone unlocked as evidence that they are related to the deceased.

Even then Apple may not unlock the iphone because they are always of the opinion that if a person wanted others to have access to their iphone they would either tell them the passcode(s) or not put locks on it. If an iphone has locks and no one in the family or friends knows the passcode then Apples is off the opinion that person did not want people getting access to their iphone and thus they will honor that belief and not unlock it for anyone.

Getting such an iphone unlocked seems to be a bit of a hit and miss because there has been posts over the years of people asking how do they get a deceased relatives iphone unlocked and the same information on what they should do is given to them and in some cases it works and in other cases it doesn't with the person saying Apple still refused to help.

The most important information you need to make sure you have is the owners receipt. Basically the person who bought the iphone. Was it the wife? was it the dad? was it the mom? was it you? because without that receipt Apple will not help you at all because it is the first thing they will ask. The reason for this is because many iphones get stolen and the thieves try their luck at Apple stores claiming to be all sorts of things and coming up with all sorts of excuses to try and get the stolen iphone unlocked. This is why Apple will ask for proof of ownership before they will even engage in trying to help you so do not be angry or annoyed if they refuse to help you if you do not have the purchase receipt because only the owner would have the receipt.

If the dad bought the iphone and you still have the receipt, if if used a debit or credit card to pay for the iphone, see if that card is still available because the more information you have that can prove who and how the iphone was purchased will help you when dealing with Apple.

But remember, even with all of this they may still refuse to help you because it is their job to protect the privacy and security of the owner of the iphone because to them the owner may never have wanted others to have access to their iphone and that is what they are protecting, even in death. This is why you have to try and convince Apple otherwise.

 

[Downhilltenago]

my wife's grandmother went to apple with the death certificate and they are claiming she needs a court order. I find that excessive.

 

[DaveS86]

A court order…..Jesus. Sorry

 

[laptech]

my wife's grandmother went to apple with the death certificate and they are claiming she needs a court order. I find that excessive.

I know this is different in every country but when a person dies usually someone is assigned to handle all their affairs. In many countries this person or persons is called the 'Executor of the estate' OR 'Executor of the Will'. This person(s) is given the legal status of handling the deceased persons affairs like dealing with their bank accounts, any loans, mortgages, credit cards. This is done by the deceased person making a will and assigning someone who they would like to handle things when they are gone, most importantly the funeral.

Things become complicated if no will is made or the country does not have such a process. If that is the case it will then be the next of kin who takes control of the deceased persons affairs BUT there is no legal standing here, it just a rights of passage kind of thing. This process can get messy because if the next of kin needs to get things closed down such as bank accounts, loans, credit cards and such forth, due to them not having the legal power of attorney over their deceased relative (Executor of the estate, Executor of the Will is given that power via the Will) banks and others can request that you get a court order.

I do believe in many countries a person can contact a government department to request that they be given Executor status over their deceased relative and that it can take a number of weeks before that person receives a letter telling them they have the legal power to handle the deceased persons affair.

In your case Apple should only require a court order if there is no Executor of the estate/will or no power of attorney. Does your family have such a person that has been assigned such a position? This position would have to have been agreed by a government department with a letter being sent to the person telling them they have been given the legal power to handle the deceased person's affairs.

Remember, being next of kin does not given that person the legal power to handle the deceased persons affairs which is why banks and companies will request a court order because the court order is basically giving the person the legal power to handle the deceased persons affairs.

BUT if your in a country that does have Executors of the estate/will, then that person would be the one responsible in contacting Apple. That person would have to have a copy of the letter that proves they have been given the legal power to handle the deceased persons affairs as well as all the other paperwork (ID's and purchase receipt).

Remember, like I said in my other post, Apple will be the way they are being because it is their job to protect the privacy and security of the owner of the iphone and due to criminals trying to use every trick in the book to get stolen iphones unlocked, Apple have to follow a very strict process of getting an iphone unlocked because if an iphone was stolen and Apple unlocked it and the criminal then used the contents of the iphone to engage in other criminal activity, Apple could get sued by the original owners of the stolen iphone for making it too easy to unlock.

Don't blame Apple here, they are just protecting their backs making sure they do everything legal.

 

[okkibs]

Why is the iPhone locked to owner in the first place? That's something the owner themselves need to initiate when they consider their device lost or stolen. And how is Apple supposed to get in? The passcode is required full stop. Apple has denied law enforcement requests to unlock suspect's iPhones stating that it's technically impossible for Apple to circumvent the passcode lock.

The court order thing is more likely related to regaining access to the Apple ID itself, which doesn't unlock the phone but gives access to data stored on iCloud that Apple can read (meaning they can't read end-to-end encrypted data).

It is simply not possible to access an iPhone without knowing the passcode.

 

[DaveS86]

The FBI can get in to your iPhone.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Apple won't need a "court order" per se, unless you want the information from the deceased's iCloud account. To simply re-use the phone, they will require proof of ownership. The phone has to be erased - which it apparently is if you're seeing the "locked to owner" screen.

Your wife's grandmother just needs to get an original proof of purchase (i.e. sales receipt) and start a request from the link on this page.

 

[okkibs]

Apple won't need a "court order" per se, unless you want the information from the deceased's iCloud account.

That's correct. Apple was talking about the iCloud account (Apple ID), not about the device.

The phone has to be erased - which it apparently is if you're seeing the "locked to owner" screen.

That's what I thought at first too but no, it shows that screen as soon as you activate the lost mode. So the iPhone likely wasn't erased. OP wants to access the information stored on the iPhone without knowing the passcode, to access memories like photos of a loved one - if OP is telling the truth.

The problem I see here is that someone must have put that iPhone into lost mode to begin with and the only person who could have done that is the iPhone's owner. If the device is with the family and wasn't lost why would the iPhone be in lost mode? It doesn't do that on its own. And OP couldn't have done that either as Apple already explained they need a court order to grant access to the account.

Now I do usually take the provided information at face value and don't question it, here it does make me wonder. It does not matter though: Without knowing the passcode nobody can access the iPhone, not even Apple. So whether the request here is legitimate or not, the contents of the iPhone have been permanently lost already.

The FBI cannot unlock the iPhone either. They gave the iPhone in question years ago to a large defense contractor that had the resources to find and exploit a particular loophole that did let them unlock that iPhone at the time and possibly others at the time but that giant security issue was promptly fixed and no iPhone today should still be vulnerable to it. Well unless we consider the iPhone X and older, these are generally insecure due to a major bootloader exploit called checkm8 which remains unfixable as it's rooted in hardware and can't be patched out by software. And even then that's non-trivial.

 

[laptech]

I believe activation lock can occur if you enter in the passcode wrong too many times which will then result in 'iphone locked to owner' message appear on the iphone. If an iphone is lost or stolen, the owner of the iphone would have to log into their Apple account via another Apple device to activate 'mark as lost' which will activate a lock on the iphone. The man's mother closed his T-mobile account. This would not have activated the activation lock. All it would have done is prevented the iphone from accessing a mobile network, it would still be a functional iphone. I am sure the OP could confirm this but I have a feeling the man's mother tried entering the man's passcode wrongly too many times causing it to activate the activation lock.

The man would have had to create an Apple ID account to be able to use the iphone. Question is does the family know the mans Apple ID and password because all they would need to do is log into his Apple ID account and clear the activation lock. This would still negate the passcode that the man put on the iphone but they can use the mans Apple ID account to remove or at least change the passcode to a new code they know.

 

[okkibs]

I believe activation lock can occur if you enter in the passcode wrong too many times which will then result in 'iphone locked to owner' message appear on the iphone.

No, after 5 wrong entries it switches to "iPhone Unavailable try again in 1 minute. Then with each following wrong code the timer is increased. The 10th attempt finally locks the iPhone with no further possible tries requiring a reset. At no point does this engage the iCloud lost/lock mode even with the 10th failed attempt, all it does is lock the iPhone for good (and if the respective function was activated in settings it will instantly wipe the iPhone).

And activation lock is something different, that appears before device activation upon first boot after a reset. This iPhone is activated and not activation locked. It is not locked at all, it's merely in lost mode. It can be accessed with the correct passcode. If it was locked it could not be accessed with the passcode and would require the iCloud account information instead.

It's in lost mode. All that lost mode does is activate the lockscreen, disable notifications, permanently show a message of your choice and a phone number of your choice where you can be reached, disable Apple Pay, and it allows to track the device location.

they can use the mans Apple ID account to remove or at least change the passcode to a new code they know.

That is very wrong. The only screen you will ever see on an iPhone regarding a passcode reset is the following: "This iPhone is in security lockout. You can try your passcode again in x minutes, or you can erase or reset this iPhone now. support.apple.com/passcode" with the only options being "cancel" or "Start iPhone Reset".

There is absolutely never ever a way to reset a forgotten device passcode without a device reset wiping all data.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

OP wants to access the information stored on the iPhone without knowing the passcode, to access memories like photos of a loved one - if OP is telling the truth.

Well, that's easy - can't be done. The info on the PHONE is toast, no matter what.

Assuming the photos, etc are synced to iCloud, that info in iCloud can be obtained as mentioned earlier... assuming USA, the OP would need "a court order that names you as the rightful inheritor of your loved one’s personal information." This article explains.