Got a lost iPhone and I want to return it

exevio wrote:

It's from another country. I doubt reporting it to the police is ever going to help the owner get it. What can local (Croatian) police do that I can't? I can ask them if they have a procedure in place but I'm more for a direct more concrete approach.

Thanks!

There is absolutely nothing that you can do. Apple doesn’t get involved at all with lost or stolen personal property. Other than turning it over to the police, nobody can do a thing about tracking its previous owner.

And since it’s been erased, the owner themselves cannot track it or post a screen lock message using lost mode.

No. Turn it over to the police.

Report a lost or stolen Apple product - https://support.apple.com/HT204315 - "If you have lost or found an Apple product, please contact your local law enforcement agency to report it." (Old wording but it still says pretty much the same.)

exevio wrote:

If users opted into securing their devices through Find my iPhone feature, wouldn't it be logical to have a feature to message the owner without disclosing any private information? This doesn't breach any user's privacy nor does require Apple intervening in lost devices. Simple feature to ping the owner.

I wish somebody from Apple could comment on this one.

There is already such an option - lost mode screen lock messages. Any device owner can use lost mode to display whatever message and contact information they chose to let strangers see.

But find my iPhone has been very deliberately designed to place 100% of the responsibility and control of the feature in the hands of device owners. Apple employees are deaf, dumb and blind to find my iPhone. All Apple does is provide the service - they do not monitor it or intercede with it in any way. Apple has deliberately designed a system which distances themselves from any active role and allows owners full control.

And an Apple employee is not going to comment on Apple policies or practices in these forums - they never do. Their role here is almost exclusively no more than enforcing forum posting rules as per the ToS.

Where it's from is irrelevant. The fact is that Apple can not assist you. The person who originally found it should have turned it over to the authorities.

exevio wrote:

Too bad Apple didn't implement any method of reaching out to the owner since they know who it is.

Privacy laws in many countries would prohibit them from doing so.

There would likely be all kinds of legal mess if Apple started getting involved in device recovery. I can understand them wanting to stay well away from it.

exevio wrote:

Device knows who the owner is since I can see it's email but only partially.
If only I could see the whole email then I could contact the owner that way.

If I give it to the police, it's just gonna stay at some storage room for who knows how long.

Too bad Apple didn't implement any method of reaching out to the owner since they know who it is.

It’s not Apple’s responsibility to do anything at all about monitoring or intervening with anyone’s personal property. It would be a legal violation to do so, as well as an explicit violation of their very own privacy policy. No private or public consumer products company intervenes that way when it comes to lost or stolen personal property.

Privacy - Apple