If you’re planning on committing a heist any time soon, you’ll probably want to avoid the iPhone. An entire field of forensic study is cropping up around the device, both because it’s so popular, and because it records a wealth of information about the person using it. Whenever you close the map application, for example, the iPhone covertly snaps and stores a screenshot, giving police a handy record of your whereabouts.
Of course, any phone can contain data, but it’s easier to grab evidence off an iPhone than a Blackberry or Android phone, law enforcement officials tell the Detroit Free Press. “Very, very few people have any idea how to actually remove data from their phone,” says one cell phone forensic researcher. “It may look like everything’s gone, but for anybody who’s got a clue, retrieving that information is easy.” (More iPhone stories.)