IPhone – Is an Erased, Stolen iPhone, Safe on iCloud

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My wife's iPhone was stolen, and because our iCloud is connected via Family Sharing, I immediately put it on stolen mode and then erase mode to remove all the data once it came online.

I checked several hours later, and it showed that the iPhone had been erased, and currently, the iPhone is still under her iCloud.

My questions are:

  1. Is it secure to keep it linked to her iCloud account? (Is there any risk of the iPhone being linked to her/my account again, and our information being accessed?)
  2. Is it safer to remove it from my iCloud? (Will this allow the thief to reuse the iPhone?)
  3. She has never backed-up her pictures with iCloud. Can she retrieve any of them?

Best Answer

  1. It is secure to keep it linked to her iCloud. It will remain Activation Locked, which makes it unusable. The data is not at risk because you've deleted it from the device, remotely. If this had not been done and Lost Mode was activated, you could have located the device.
  2. Removing it from iCloud will, enable the thief to use it.
  3. If there are no backups, iCloud or local, there is no way to retrieve the pictures.
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