Your parent is referring to a DMCA exemption approved by the US Copyright Office in 2012. Jailbreaking phones is currently legal "where circumvention is accompl

Your parent is referring to a DMCA exemption approved by the US Copyright Office in 2012. Jailbreaking phones is currently legal "where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of [lawfully obtained software] applications with computer programs on the telephone handset"[0], while jailbreaking tablets is not. See also this timeline of the EFF's efforts in getting DMCA exemptions: https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca-rulemaking https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca-rulemaking [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_jailbreaking#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_jailbreaking#United_States