Retrieving texts that have been remotely deleted

[RoyalFactor]

There is a potential legal case I have been asked about where someone has said something by text that they are now denying. The person who received the texts has been asked to produce them by a lawyer and has gone to her o2 iphone to find that the conversation now only comprises her texts, all those of the other party have disappeared. How is this possible? And can they be retrieved from a central system?

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

@RoyalFactor If the texts are no longer there then they may be lost. In some messenging apps there is an option to delete text but that is usually before the recipient has actually read them

[Cleoriff]

@RoyalFactorThe only way I can retrieve deleted texts is by using SMS Back Up and Restore. Not sure that's available for iPhones though?

[MI5]

Try restoring the phone from a backup but they won’t be deleted unless the person actually deleted them.
They can’t delete by themselves.

[Cleoriff]

A lot of discussion about iPhone sms back up and restore here

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4344995

[RoyalFactor]

Unfortunately the phone wasn’t backed up. I’m wondering if O2 will have them on a central server?

[Anonymous]

@RoyalFactorwrote:
Unfortunately the phone wasn’t backed up. I’m wondering if O2 will have them on a central server?

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I’m not sure that’s possible 

[MI5]

No, I'm afraid they are gone forever.

[RoyalFactor]

Ok, thanks. Any idea how it could have been done?

[Anonymous]

@RoyalFactor The previous post of mine said that possibly the person had deleted them themselves. Also corroborated in another post by @MI5