Skip to main content

Police officers hilariously use a lost phone to post selfies on Facebook

Lost iPhone Cell Facebook
Bella Crooke/Facebook
If you don’t have a passcode set up on your smartphone, this story may prompt you do properly secure it. When a lost iPhone without any security activated was handed into a police station in Albury, Australia recently, the cops decided to teach its owner a lesson on the importance of not letting just anyone operate it. How? By posting selfies to her Facebook page.

Police Selfie Lost iPhoneAn officer snapped a selfie and added to the owner’s Facebook with the caption, “You should probably put a password on your phone. When you are ready to pick it up it will be at Albury police station.” Soon afterwards, the post gathered nearly 150 Likes and shares, but the fun and games didn’t stop there.

Spurred on by the response, Albury police officers moved on from amusing selfies to groan-inducing puns. Next, a picture of the phone inside a locked cell was uploaded with the comment: “If you’re worried about the battery going flat, don’t. By the time you pick it up it will be fully ‘charged.’ It’s a great ‘cell’ phone.

They also joked the phone would be out earlier than expected due to good behavior, but only if the owner posted bail. Comments on the Facebook page called the stunt “epic,” and the officers responsible were called the, “best policemen ever,” and “legends.”

Happily, the police department took the joke in the way it was intended. Albury police’s Inspector Moodie (who didn’t live up to his name) said it was a “novel way” of finding out who owns a lost device, and that police have the authority to search a phone in this way. “It doesn’t surprise me the creative ways they come up with in getting property back to the original owner,” he told the Border Mail.

The owner visited the station to pick up her phone six hours after the first post was uploaded, and didn’t need to give her name, because she was recognized from her Facebook page. Amazingly, according to the Daily Mail, she hadn’t seen the Facebook postings at the time. We’re assuming a super-secure passcode has now been added.

Editors' Recommendations

Andy Boxall
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
I used one of the coolest iPhone accessories in years at CES 2024
An iPhone in the Clicks keyboard case.

CES typically isn't a big show for mobile, but CES 2024 has been a strange exception to that rule. From the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro to futuristic foldable concepts from Samsung, there's been a lot of exciting mobile tech to look at.

That also includes Clicks — a new accessory that essentially transforms your iPhone into a BlackBerry.

Read more
The iPhone 15 Pro has a killer camera feature you’ll never use
Shooting Apple ProRES Log video on iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Over the past few years, Apple has been leaning more into pushing the pricey “Pro” iPhones as a creative person’s best friend. Some of the marketing claims don’t sound that outlandish. For example, Cinematic Mode really blew my mind, as long as I had stable hands or a gimbal at my disposal.

With the iPhone 15 Pro pair, Apple introduced the ability to capture videos in Log format. Log takes a mathematical approach to video capture and editing. But to draw a rough parallel, Log capture is to video what RAW format is to a photo.

Read more
There’s only one reason I’m still using an iPhone in 2023
A green iPhone 15 lock screen.

It's not an understatement to say I am an Android smartphone fan, as an Android phone has been my faithful companion ever since I started using the HTC Desire in 2010. I've bounced from phone to phone in the 13 years since, and I've experienced good and bad phones alike. But in all that time, I've never spent much time with an Apple iPhone. I'm obviously not unfamiliar with iPhones, having used them during my time as a tech writer grabbing screenshots, downloading apps, and testing games — but never having used one as my primary smartphone is something of a blind spot.

The Apple iPhone 15 is a good reason to end that. After all, if I'm going to use an iPhone, it might as well be Apple's latest. Two weeks after booting it up and transferring my data to it, it's been ... a journey. While I can see the iPhone 15 is an excellent smartphone, too many of iOS's idiosyncracies rub me the wrong way. However, there's one feature I've grown to really love, and I'm going to struggle to live without it.
The iPhone 15 is a mixed bag

Read more