Indeed - there is even a book that covers this topic:
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The phone remains activation locked to the Apple ID until it’s removed by the owner or the person who is trying to activate the device successfully authenticates to the Apple ID. Even if the device is manually erased, or erased using the Find My service. This is why people keep trying to trick or intimidate people into removing the device from their Find My.
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Up…and the good thing is the number of digits isn’t displayed like the 4 digit ones so the bad guy has no idea how long it is.
An acquaintance of mine passed away unexpectedly a few months ago. His family gave his iPhone 13 to a friend of mine and asked me to remove the activation lock from this phone. Nobody knew his Apple ID or password and I was unable to set up this phone for a new user even after resetting the phone, which erased all the data. I even tried several apps I found online which claim to be able to remove the activation lock, but none of them will work with an iPhone 13. Some thieves may know tricks I don’t know, but Apple told me that the activation lock cannot be removed without the Apple ID and password used to set up this phone. Any iPhone can be sold for parts, however, and it may be possible to access the phone’s data from the SSD after it is removed. But I would leave the phone and the Apple ID as they are. If you dissociate the phone from its Apple ID, it can easily be set up for another user. I’m sure there are others here who know more about this subject than I do.
This is a good argument for either a digital estate plan or making sure your significant other either knows your passwords, has your master password to get into whatever password keeper you use, or knows where to get the envelope at your house with the master password in it. Depending on one’s level of paranoia/security/trust…something along that continuum is a good idea.
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@Neil: Absolutely!