14 DAY TRIAL // A stolen iPhone 4 equipped with an app that snaps photos of people attempting to unlock it spoke back to its rightful owner with a photo of the potential thief and her location.
The iPhone owner received the photo in question (on the left) as she tried to unlock the phone. The security application working in the background is thought to be iGotYa, a jailbreak tool downloaded from Cydia. No wonder they legalized it.
The phone was reportedly stolen from the Coalition nightclub in Brighton, East Sussex earlier this month. The photo was taken more recently at a different location.
The woman using the device appeared to be sitting “in a vehicle with quite a large sunroof,” according to PC Gavin Crute, of Sussex Police.
The police is unsure whether or not the woman in the photo is the actual perp, but they’ve put out a notice that calls on anyone who might know her. If you have any information that may prove valuable in this case, you should contact Sussex Police on 101.
Crute said, “The owner of the camera has a rather cool app that takes a picture of anyone who tries to unlock it, maps their current location and then sends all the info back to the owner in an email.”
“We don't know that the woman is the person who stole the camera, but she obviously has had some connection with it in the meantime and I'd like to speak to her about it,” said Crute.
This is just one of dozens of similar cases where an iPhone speaks back to its rightful owner with location info and even photos of its surroundings lending police investigators a helping hand in tracking its whereabouts.
Apple itself markets a similar safety solution called Find My iPhone which provides accurate coordinates of the iPhone’s location by pinpointing it on a map.