Well unless they factory reset the phones, which they obviously did not, android keeps usage stats on app so it would be obvious if the apps were used or not.<p>But you are right, it could just be someone overstating something where apps have the ability to be encrypted, not that they were used that way.<p>Still all these people were already known to their secret services. Some even had phone taps already. It was yet another intelligence failure like we saw on 9&#x2F;11