One example: There was a person harassing people on facebook in a small local community. Sending obscene images and making threats. To solve the crime local law enforcement ended up compiling a list of just under 20 possible suspects.
Hoping to match an iCloud photo to a post on facebook a warrant was issued for all 20 users data. Apple sends an. encrypted file with all the data and then another email with the passwords
Long story short the offender was caught however almost 20 people’s data was looked through by local law enforcement. I stress local because this is not some federal agent solving a major crime but just a neighbor police officer who sends his own kids to the same schools as these other innocent people.
Disclaimer: I assisted law enforcement on this case and a couple of others.
https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/law-enforcement-guidelin...
Some it seems thinks Apple keeps data private and anonymous. In fact they do the opposite and encourage using an icloud account over and over (after ever update). All of this data is easily acquired via a warrant at any law enforcement level.
A county cop (without a college degree) investigating his neighbor can get all this info simply submitting a scanned PDF of a warrant from a county judge.