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markfa1983 Author

Level 1

4 points

iPhone Activation Lock

Hi,

Probably a simple one that I'm hoping somebody can help me with.

A friend has an iPhone and when we turn it on and enter the PIN, it has the message, "Activate iPhone. This phone is currently linked to an apple ID *******@*******.com. Sign in with the Apple ID that was used to set up this phone.

We know the PIN to the phone as it was legitimately given to us but due to reasons I won't go into here, another person changed the itunes account password.

We probably could contact this person but we are trying to establish what has happened. We know that find my iphone has the activation lock built in but we are wondering what this person has done at the other end. Has it been erased? Just put in lost mode? What does somebody need to do via the icloud control panel to make this particular message appear? There are many web pages out there that talk about activation lock but they don't really explain how it works. I was expecting to see a button in the icloud control panel that allows me to activation lock but all I see is "play sound", "erase iPhone" and "Lost mode".

Is anybody able to explain what has happened to make this message appear?

Thanks

iPhone 6s, iOS 11.2.6

Posted on Mar 14, 2018 4:28 AM

Best reply

gail from maine

Level 9

52,575 points

Posted on Mar 16, 2018 9:14 AM

markfa1983 wrote:

Thanks for the reply, Gail.

I thought this might be the case - was hoping not due to the content on the phone being sentimental.

Last question on this then (purely for my info) - if the phone was erased, why isn't the passcode removed too? Is it by design that the passcode will remain on the handset?

Thanks

Hi markfa,

Yes - Activation Lock will remain in place even when the device has been erased because Find My iPhone is still turned on for that device. That is so the owner can remove their personal information, but still prevent a thief from using the device. Here are a couple of articles that might help explain the process:

ACTIVATION LOCK

Turn off Find My iPhone Activation Lock

Prepare your device to sell or give away

However, if you have any way to physically contact the person, they could type in their iCloud ID and Password (or provide you with the password), and then go to Settings>name>, scroll to the bottom of that screen and sign that iCloud account out of the device. When you sign it out, it will ask you to provide the passcode again to sign out Find My iPhone. Then you wouldn't lose anything, and you would then be able to sign into iCloud with your own ID and turn on Find My iPhone under that ID.

Best of luck,

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iPhone Activation Lock

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