Accessing deleted text messages

bobsman

Folks, apologies if this is the wrong forum but don't know where else.

Won't go into too much detail. Can deleted text messages be recovered? Would be used in relation to inappropriate content to a minor.

Thanks

LegacyUser

bobsman wrote: »

Folks, apologies if this is the wrong forum but don't know where else.

Won't go into too much detail. Can deleted text messages be recovered? Would be used in relation to inappropriate content to a minor.

Thanks

Potentially yes. Depends on what type of phone, how long ago the message were deleted and what activity there has been on the phone since.

But more to the point, if you suspect inappropriate content to a minor surely you should be approaching the Gardaí who can advise you much better than anything you will read here?

Passenger

It depends on your service provider but you might be able to if the phone is backed up to iCloud. Might be best asking in one of the tech forums.

nikkibikki

The gardai can get them anyway as far as I know.

banie01

Your service provider holds no copy of the content of any messages or data.
Irish Telcos hold records of all inbound and outbound connections, and metadata, calls and mast locations for a rolling 2yr period, but they do not hold content.
(From many years experience of dealing with such requests)

The deleted messages could be recovered via forensic means, cellebrite or similar. Assuming the addressed memory used has been deleted and not actually overwritten.

Should you believe that an offence has occurred the Gardaî should be your 1st port of call as they are only body that can investigate the handset and guarantee a chain of evidence.

There may be messages available via cloud backups or similar.
The advice above pertains to the physical handset, and records held by Telcos.