A court has ruled that defendants are not required to hand over pass codes for their devices.

The court ruled that handing over passcodes would deprive them of their Fifth Amendment constitutional rights.

The ruling came in a Pennsylvania court case where the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused two former Capital One data analysts of insider trading.

The accused men were using bank issued smartphones to conduct their business. The SEC wanted to see if there was evidence on the phones of the insider trading. The men declined to give out their passcodes and the court ruled in their favor.

The court opinion states: "Since the passcodes to Defendants' [sic] work-issued smartphones are not corporate records, the act of producing their personal passcodes is testimonial in nature and Defendants properly invoke their fifth Amendment privilege."

Source: SCMagazine