-Opposition Leader’s phones still with cops
Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed has raised questions over the disappearance of the Team Mohamed’s Facebook page while two of his mobile phones and a laptop were in police custody.
Mohamed told Kiskadee Watch yesterday that he could not say with certainty what caused the Team Mohamed’s page to disappear because the two phones he used to access the account were seized by police following his detention last Friday. “I am worried because it’s never happened before,” he stated.
The Team Mohamed page has been a major communication platform for Mohamed and his supporters, and he said its disappearance is particularly concerning because the devices he normally uses to communicate through Facebook Messenger remain with police. “I have confidential messages there, and Facebook, everything, everything is there and we need the phones.”
He expressed concern that the police could have accessed the devices, although the devices had passwords on them.
Meanwhile, Kiskadee Watch spoke to an IT professional, who tested Facebook’s current process for permanently deleting a Page from a mobile phone. The test showed that a person with the necessary administrative control of a Facebook Page can enter the Page settings, select “Delete Page” and proceed through a series of confirmation screens. However, the process ultimately requires the password for the personal Facebook account controlling the Page.
In the test, the password field was initially empty. Simply having the Facebook account open and logged in on the phone was therefore not sufficient, by itself, to complete permanent deletion.
The IT specialist cautioned, however, that the requirement for a password does not necessarily mean that the person attempting to delete the page must know the password from memory.
Smartphones can store passwords through services such as Apple’s Passwords/iCloud Keychain or Google Password Manager. Depending on how a device is configured, a stored Facebook password may be capable of being automatically entered or retrieved after the device user authenticates with a passcode, Face ID, fingerprint or another security method.
Therefore, the specialist said, someone with sufficient access to a device could potentially have access to both a Facebook account that is already logged in and credentials stored on that device.
But the test does not establish that whoever had possession of Mohamed’s phones could access or delete his Facebook Page.
The IT professional said several questions would have to be answered before such a conclusion could be reached, including whether either phone was accessible, whether an account with administrative control of Team Mohamed was logged in, whether the relevant Facebook password was stored on the device and whether that credential could be accessed.
The test also highlighted that a Facebook Page disappearing from public view does not necessarily mean it was permanently deleted. Facebook provides administrators with separate options to deactivate or unpublish a Page. Both can remove a Page from public view while allowing it to be restored.
As such, the disappearance of Team Mohamed does not, on its own, establish who caused it to become inaccessible, whether it was permanently deleted or whether the action was carried out using either of Mohamed’s seized phones.
Still in custody
The two phones and laptop were among several items seized by police following the incident in which Mohamed, his driver and a photographer were detained after visiting the Leonora area. He said the group was stopped by two police vehicles while leaving the area and that officers searched them and the vehicle before finding a drone.
He told Kiskadee Watch that the police subsequently alleged that the drone had been flown over President Irfaan Ali’s residence. But he has since dismissed that allegation and said the area is a no-fly zone, urging police to examine the drone’s flight path to establish where it had actually been operated.
Mohamed said police also seized two vehicles, his identification card, driver’s licence and keys.
He said the two phones were taken at approximately 9:30 p.m. Friday and that both were used to access the Team Mohamed Facebook account; a laptop was also seized.
The Opposition Leader said the devices contain confidential communications and that their continued detention is interfering with his ability to communicate through Messenger. “Of course, that is the main channel for people communicating with me, the people of this country,” he said.
His three employees – Eugene Thorne, Mario Mohamed, and Dwayne Ross – remain in police custody and maintain that they were wrongfully arrested.
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