How The FBI Found Deleted Signal Messages From An iPhone, Even After The App Was Removed

Zohaib Ahmed/SlashGear

The iPhone isn’t really the kind of device you’d expect to hold onto an app’s data after you delete the app. But apparently it did, and not in any obvious way. In fact, earlier in April, 404 Media reported that the FBI was able to recover copies of incoming Signal messages from the iPhone’s notification database — even after the app had been uninstalled. And this is Signal we’re talking about, one of the more popular secure iPhone apps that let you hide messages and chat privately. The platform is widely considered more private than the likes of WhatsApp due to its robust end-to-end encryption (E2EE) and stores very little user data.

But none of this meant anything since the iPhone itself proved to be the culprit in this case. Worse, as an additional security step, those recovered messages were rigged to self-destruct after a set timer, which had run out. The arrests came out of an incident in July at the ICE Prairieland Detention Facility, a federal holding center down in Alvarado, Texas. There, a group allegedly set off fireworks, vandalized property, and one of them allegedly shot a police officer in the neck. The bigger question hanging over the whole thing, though, is how the FBI got at the Signal data in the first place.