Can the iPhone be taking screenshots of everything you do on the device? Apparently it does. As reported by tuaw.com, a forensics expert, Jonathan Zdziarski, claims that the iPhone not only takes screenshots of your activity, but these screen shots, while deleted, may be recoverable, showing traces of your activity, and even confidential information.
TUAW explains: “On your iPhone or your iPod touch, when you press the Home button, there’s a nice little animation that takes you back to the home screen. To create that animation, your iPhone takes a screenshot of whatever it is you’re doing, and uses it for the transition.”
The problem is that such data, even after deletion, may be recovered using forensics software. You don’t need to worry that these screenshots are being sent to Big Brother, or that anyone can pick up your phone and view them, but if experts with the right software get a hold of your phone, they can certainly recover many of them, maybe even the ones where you’re writing secret messages or viewing confidential web pages.
Should you be worried? Probably not, unless you work for an intelligence organization. And something tells me that real spies would be using a cellphone to view or display confidential data. Though Jack Bauer might…
