The accusations from GrapheneOS come in response to articles by Le Parisien and Le Figaro, which claimed criminals use a version of GrapheneOS equipped with a “fake Snapchat” page that wipes data when accessed.
I have been using GrapheneOS on Pixel 3A XL, and 7 Pro, and now 9 Pro XL, and this has never been a feature. Just sloppy reporting, because like it would have like taken them really no effort to actually try GrapheneOS.
The team cited a specific passage in the Le Parisien coverage as a “direct threat” from French law enforcement leadership (OFAC), implying that tech providers who do not provide backdoors will face legal consequences.
If that’s the case they did the right thing, because by the sound of it this backdoor would not be a targeted approach because there is no login or unique identifiers to use GrapheneOS. These agencies do not at all sound legitimate with these requests, guess that’s why its done with secrecy. This kind of behavior is exactly the same as what you can expect over here.
By hardening the base Android code, GrapheneOS would effectively “burn” the expensive exploits used by police and forensic firms like Cellebrite, making all Android phones harder to crack, not just Pixels running GrapheneOS.
As they should, as these are used by all criminals, including criminal authorities in criminal states (If you need to know about which ones I am thinking of, just think about the worst most restrictive places on earth).