Stolen iPad - we know who has it.

jgwatson
Contributor

One of our ex-students who we kicked out has all of a sudden lost his school iPad. I know for a fact he still has it.

Every day the jss sends a policy to hide his apps (because you can't have games on our school iPad's), and I have also hidden the app store. On a daily basis the fool wipes his iPad, plays games for a few hours, and then the apps hide etc. This repeats the next day.

What else can I do to make this iPad useless (and partly entertain myself).

Thanks.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

JKoopman
New Contributor III

Is the student's authentication account not being disabled after leaving the district? That would seem to solve the problem, as they would no longer be able to use it for DEP enrollment unless they knew someone else's account. They could wipe it all they want but would never be able to get farther than the enrollment screen. It also sounds like you're relying on smart groups to restrict the iPad. If you scope a restriction profile directly to the username/device, it should receive it immediately on enrollment and remove their ability to install/use apps before they get a chance to put anything on it.

Otherwise, my suggestion would be to make a separate additional restriction profile with the "Allow Erase All Content and Settings" option disabled and deploy that specifically to the student's iPad. I don't believe that would prevent them from placing the iPad in Recovery Mode and wiping it through iTunes however.

If you know the student's AppleID password, you could change their password. Then if they do try to wipe it through iTunes, they'd get stuck at Activation Lock.

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16 REPLIES 16

Rhinehart
Contributor

Turn off his ability to wipe it.

jgwatson
Contributor

Whaaaaat? How do you do that remotely? Thanks so much, this is huge.

Goober22
New Contributor III

I take it this is a DEP iPad if it keeps getting enrolled after wiping? If so, do you have any sort of credentials that need to be entered to get through the initial start screen when it is wiped? If not, you could always create a different pre-stage for just that device and set it to where it wants credentials (AD or whatever you use) and that would render the iPad useless to the ex-student.

Rhinehart
Contributor

Uncheck Allow Erase All Content and Settings (supervised only) Turn off facetime and Imessage
turn off safari turn off everything you can and turn it into a paperweight
Does your jss require credentials to register it? if it does deactivate his account and wipe the ipad

JKoopman
New Contributor III

Is the student's authentication account not being disabled after leaving the district? That would seem to solve the problem, as they would no longer be able to use it for DEP enrollment unless they knew someone else's account. They could wipe it all they want but would never be able to get farther than the enrollment screen. It also sounds like you're relying on smart groups to restrict the iPad. If you scope a restriction profile directly to the username/device, it should receive it immediately on enrollment and remove their ability to install/use apps before they get a chance to put anything on it.

Otherwise, my suggestion would be to make a separate additional restriction profile with the "Allow Erase All Content and Settings" option disabled and deploy that specifically to the student's iPad. I don't believe that would prevent them from placing the iPad in Recovery Mode and wiping it through iTunes however.

If you know the student's AppleID password, you could change their password. Then if they do try to wipe it through iTunes, they'd get stuck at Activation Lock.

Rhinehart
Contributor

Get the ip address that it is reporting from and turn it over to Law Enforcement, after all it was "lost"

MikeV-Holden
New Contributor

You could also set a content filter to only allow access to specific websites. Then add a bookmark to the only website allowed (Your district acceptable use policy.) to the home screen.

jgwatson
Contributor

The iPad is supervised FYI.

Look
Valued Contributor III

Surely this is a case for.

Log several days worth of activity.
Call cops.
Put feet up.

mm2270
Legendary Contributor III

I have to agree with both @Rhinehart and @Look here. I wouldn't take matters into your own hands if I were you. While I'm sure you're correct that the student still has it and is using it, you can't really be 100% certain of that. Gather what evidence you can, file a lost/stolen property report with police and give them the evidence you have and let them handle getting it back for you. If the student does in fact have it, I'm sure the police knocking on his door asking questions will be far more effective in getting it back than you attempting to make it unusable for him.

scottb
Honored Contributor

Yup, while it may be gratifying to smack him in the chops yourself, call the cops and let him are really miserable and enjoy that gov't cheese sandwich for a while...

jgwatson
Contributor

Thanks for your help everyone. I will tell the local police for sure, but at the end of the day I'm not sure they are going to have the time on a case like this. I don't see them getting a search warrant for something like this, when I can't prove 100% where it is. We have much bigger problems in this city. You never know I guess, but I did enjoy implementing some of your suggestions. Since Friday I haven't be getting the notifications that he (or somebody) is wiping the iPad.

Thanks again.

bradtchapman
Valued Contributor II

Police will usually make the time if you can provide at least a modicum of solid evidence of the iPad's recent activity, and its precise whereabouts. It is much easier if they can make an encounter in a public place where they can see the iPad without having to enter / search the home. If the student is a minor, the police will put the screws on the parents.

jonathan_massey
New Contributor III

Can you go into a little more detail when you talk about the policy to hide his apps? I work in a large K-12 environment so I'm finding this very intriguing. Thanks!

JKoopman
New Contributor III

Configuration Profiles > Restrictions > Media Content > Apps > Don't Allow Apps

Setting that will cause all apps installed to "hide" and become unusable. You can make a restriction policy and scope a smart group to it that, for example, finds any student iPads that have apps installed that are not found in your App Catalog (approved apps) or specifically set it only to find iPads that have a selection of prohibited apps installed, and then any student who installs them will have all their apps hidden until such time as they delete the unwanted app(s).

If you really want to lock them down, our organization made an "iPad Jail" profile with everything disallowed/unchecked except for "Allow removing apps (supervised only)". When a student installs anything that isn't found in our App Catalog, everything on their iPad is hidden and disabled including Safari until they go to their Usage menu and manually delete the apps from there. On the next inventory update, the iPad will be removed from the restriction scoping and all their approved apps will return.

CapU
Contributor III

I know of a case where the police were called by the 16GB iPod owner and the business where the guy stole it from (he was a trusted employee) and they went and knocked on his door, recovered the iPod then arrested his sorry behind. The owners had find my iPod enabled and provided them with this information.