Signing out of iCloud for domestic abuse survivor

August 19, 2016 4:43 PM

my friend needs a way to get her iphone 6 de-linked from an icloud account owned by her abusive soon-to-be ex husband because he is using it to stalk her.

The whole story is messy. Ex husband is abusive alcoholic. After she left he went to the police and accused her of being an alcoholic and drug addict and said she was the abusive one (she is not) so social workers took her daughter away. Since he is the one that is actually like that and has been arrested for it a couple of times he had to go to rehab or jail and also is only allowed supervised visits with their daughter. Because of this my friend has a lot of social workers she has to report to in the process of trying to regain custody and a lot of people need to get ahold of her so she doesnt want to just get a new phone and new phone number. She also doesnt want to get a new phone because she just paid a lot of money for the phone in May and cannot afford to be paying off two phones at the same time.

The major problem is that her husband has control of their shared icloud account and has changed the password so she cannot sign out. Since her phone is linked to the icloud account, she cannot turn off location services or the tracking aspect of the phone. He uses the location information to watch where she goes and when and will harass her or harass the people she is visiting. Apple has made it so the only way she can get de-linked from the icloud is if he signs her off which obviously he is not going to do. The police and social workers have been no help becuase they dont really understand the problem and keep telling her to "just sign off". She also cant go back to her previous phone since that phone number is linked to the icloud so the phone itself will be linked to the icloud.

I suggested trying to get a court order to get him to sign her off but i dont know how realistic that is. I also suggested getting a burner phone but she doesnt want to change her number because all those social workers need to get ahold of her. She also just really wants to keep her new phone because it is new and fancy. I have tried looking up if you can just change phone numbers from an iphone to an android without signing out of icloud but i couldnt find information on that plus its back to the problem that she cannot afford another smart phone. I also suggested going to a domestic violence shelter to talk to them about this problem since they have probably encountered it before but i dont know if she will actually do it. Does anyone have a suggestion for what a person should do in this situation?

posted by miss so and so to Human Relations (22 answers total)

Can she go to the apple store in person with her police reports? Also, someone at the phone carrier might be able/willing to set her up with a new phone number that forwards the old number to the new one so that she has a bit of time to notify everyone of the new number.
posted by bilabial at 4:46 PM on August 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Have you tried looking at Apple's online support? I found this by Googling "apple how to sign out of iCloud"
posted by dismal at 4:48 PM on August 19, 2016

Best answer: dismal: I'm pretty sure the problem is that she can't turn off Find my iPhone without the iCloud password. It's a theft prevention / device recovery feature called Activation Lock. This is the more relevant Apple Support article. As far as the device is concerned, the ex-husband is the owner and she is trying to remove him as owner.

Seconding that a trip to the Apple Store probably necessary (a purchase receipt may be necessary), but the reality is that the most foolproof strategy is a burner phone and notifying contacts of her new number. Then turn the iPhone off in hopes that it can be recovered in her name.
posted by supercres at 4:59 PM on August 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

Best answer: Surely you could just get a cheap $10 phone and transfer the number to that, then retain the iphone until further down the line when you can get a court order to deactivate the phone from the icloud account.

Short of that, no there is no way to unlink an iphone without the correct password.
posted by tillsbury at 5:17 PM on August 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you guys, i appreciate the input. If anyone else has something to add please do.
posted by miss so and so at 5:26 PM on August 19, 2016

Try just calling Apple support. I had an issue with my Apple ID recently that was pretty complex and esoteric and the person I got on first line phone support was incredibly helpful, very patient, and worked with me to come up with several creative solutions to the problem. I was really floored by how well the whole encounter went (and this is coming from someone who used to work in phone tech support herself).
posted by telegraph at 6:29 PM on August 19, 2016

Instead of porting the number to a new phone, she could also port it to a google voice account for a one-time $20 fee. Then she can get a new phone, with a new number and can use google voice to set up call forwarding in way that works for her. (for example you can select which number you want forwarded and which you want sent to voice mail)
posted by metahawk at 6:30 PM on August 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Once she has a lawyer, Apple won't fight court orders and he can't do so, so she can ask her lawyer to ask a judge for one. She may also be able to use a court order to show how often he's been tracking her location.

Because it sounds like she will need a lawyer at some point.

More immediately, if she just shows up at an apple store with the credit card she bought the phone with and with some sampling of the legal paperwork she's dealing with (or sample nastygrams from him), the apple staffers may be helpful.
posted by sebastienbailard at 6:46 PM on August 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

Forward all calls to a burner phone until she can get a court order or otherwise resolve this.
posted by Michele in California at 6:59 PM on August 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

What about resetting the password on the iCloud account? Many people have weak security questions as recovery options. If she can do this at a time when she knows that her ex will be...unavailable, let us say...then he wouldn't be able to try to thwart her attempts. If she's not willing or able to do this, I do know that Apple will remove an iCloud / Activation Lock restriction with proof of purchase but it will take a few days, or at least will in the case of a company.

If her phone has a SIM and is from AT&T, T-Mobile, or any of their numerous resellers (basically, not Verizon or Sprint because of added technological reasons), moving a number from one phone to annother is as easy as moving the SIM to a new device. (She'll want to stop using iMessage, or blue bubble messages, before doing this. Stopping that doesn't require the iCloud password.) I would go to a neutral place, like a coffee shop, before removing the SIM and turning off the phone so that it is the last location shown on Find my iPhone.
posted by fireoyster at 7:29 PM on August 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Could she back it up to a computer and then erase and restore it?
posted by Automocar at 9:37 PM on August 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am so sorry she's experiencing this. Yes, she needs to find a way to back up her data to a computer so she has copies of it that aren't on the shared iCloud account. There are 3rd party programs that can do this in a less "magical" way than iTunes (which stores stuff in a proprietary backup format which is great but also kind of PITA to deal with later on), so she can see piece by piece the data she's saving onto a drive. Does she have a computer, or does she have a family member who would be willing to help? She can put the phone in Airplane mode during the process to temporarily turn location services off. She will not have cell access, but this should allow her to safely do a backup of her data without him knowing. Then she can go to a neutral place, remove the SIM, erase the phone, and start forwarding all calls to a burner phone.

She could also go to an Apple store with the phone turned off so it can't be tracked, and tell the Genius bar, "I am in a domestic violence situation that is being exacerbated by my ex's ability to track my location on my phone via a shared iCloud account. He has locked me out of the iCloud account so I can't log out without the password, which I don't know. Will erasing the phone and removing the sim card help me get the iCloud account unlinked from my phone and my phone number? If not, what can I do? The police and social workers I am working with to stay safe told me to come here for help. The moment I turn this phone on, he will know I am here." She should only do this after backing up her device, because that's the first thing the Genius bar will ask of her before they do anything else to the phone. My guess is they'll have to run the situation by their store leader, so I will call my local store when they open tomorrow and ask them if I can run a "hypothetical" scenario by them and see what they say about this situation. There has to be a way to do this.

If not, she may need to come to peace with the fact that she will not be able to use her phone until she can completely disengage from the account she's on with her ex, and that could indeed require a court order.
posted by Hermione Granger at 10:35 PM on August 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh god, I just read the Activation Lock article. I am so sorry, I missed that. I still think she could go to her local Apple Store with the phone in Airplane mode and try to get help there first before getting a burner phone to forward all calls to.
posted by Hermione Granger at 10:37 PM on August 19, 2016

Actually, you know what, I will go to my local Apple Store in person tomorrow and ask about this and see what they say. Fingers crossed that I can come back with good news, or at least new information that will guide your friend to safety.
posted by Hermione Granger at 10:40 PM on August 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

I am not an Apple person so do not know about Apple Care, but if she has insurance, what is her deductible if she loses the phone or it is accidentally run over when it falls out of her pocket in her driveway? Would a replacement phone have a preloaded iCloud account? I doubt it. Assuming she lost it and got a replacement, she would get a new sim card and establish a new iCloud account without her old one.

If she bought the phone through a carrier, they will have details on the purchase including the IMEI number so she can bring that to Apple to prove her ownership and get them to remove the compromised account.
posted by AugustWest at 10:57 PM on August 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Depending on her carrier, can she just say she lost the phone and needs a new one?
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 5:32 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I used to work for Apple Support. Activation Lock can be removed if she has the purchase receipt - she can try getting the place she bought it from to look it up or reprint it for her. Another option is to lie to Apple Support and say it's her account and try to get them to verify the security info so she can reset the password. If she can't verify her ownership of the phone (via receipt) or the account (via security information), she will unfortunately have a hard time getting it removed. We got tons of sob stories that may or may not have been true and in the end, the circumstances don't matter. Proof of ownership is what matters.

She would probably do better to get a new phone and port the number and then use her own accounts for things instead of sharing with others.
posted by littlesocks at 8:05 AM on August 20, 2016 [6 favorites]

Littlesocks confirms what I was told in store this morning. :(
posted by Hermione Granger at 9:17 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: iCloud only works on iPhones. If she takes her SIM card out of the iPhone and puts it, say, an Android phone, that phone will still receive calls on her number, and have Internet access and access to popular apps, but of course won't be associated with her husband's iCloud account, because that just isn't a thing on Android.

You can get used, unlocked Android phones that are a few years old for around $100. I'd suggest the Nexus 4; I recently had to bring mine out of retirement because my current phone died, and was surprised how little it sucked. Swappa has them starting at $70.
posted by kindall at 6:30 PM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

I should mention that SIM cards come in three sizes (standard, micro, nano) and it is more convenient to get a new phone that takes the same size SIM card as her iPhone. The newer a phone is, the smaller the SIM card it likely takes. But there are adapters for if your new phone takes a bigger one than the old one, and if it takes a smaller one, it can be cut down and still work.
posted by kindall at 6:36 PM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I wanted to say thank you again for all the thoughtful responses and especially Hermione Granger for going above and beyond by going to the apple store. I really appreciate it and i hope this will be useful to my friend to resolve this problem.

ps to those who suggested going the lawyer route, that does make sense to me/seem like a really good idea, but she says she cannot afford a lawyer. I dont know how she ends up addressing the court without a lawyer; i will have to ask her
posted by miss so and so at 2:56 PM on August 21, 2016

Response by poster: pps no phone insurance
posted by miss so and so at 3:14 PM on August 21, 2016