Unfortunately a close friend of mine was assulted and robbed at gunpoint. The attackers forced him to enter his phone password so he did and they ran off. They got away with a few credit card charges but my friend was able to get home eventually to lock them out of the phone. Luckily these guys weren’t very sophisticated but this inspired us to do some research on how to protect our sensitive information in this situation in the future. We both have done the screen time trick so our Apple ID’s can’t be edited by clicking the top of settings BUT the Safety Check setting still allows someone with just the device password to change ALL of your information. Allows you to change Apple ID password, remove devices from FindMy, etc. This seems like a safety hazard rather than a feature. How do we stop this from happening? Is Apple really so far behind in security that there’s no way to block this?

EDIT: In an insanely quick turn of events (10 hours), Apple is planning to release something called “Stolen Device Protection” in iOS 17.3 which will prevent someone who only has the device passcode from changing the AID, viewing passwords, turning off FindMy, etc. To change the AID the user will need to authenticate using ONLY Face ID, then they will need to wait an hour and do it again (unless in a familiar location like work, school, or home). I am extremely happy with this update planning to come out, as it addresses all my problems. I thought I would have to wait until IOS 19 for this.