The Government Wants Your Fingerprint To Unlock Phones (dailygazette.com)

schwit1 quotes this report from the Daily Gazette: "As the world watched the FBI spar with Apple this winter in an attempt to hack into a San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, federal officials were quietly waging a different encryption battle in a Los Angeles courtroom. There, authorities obtained a search warrant compelling the girlfriend of an alleged Armenian gang member to press her finger against an iPhone that had been seized from a Glendale home. The phone contained Apple's fingerprint identification system for unlocking, and prosecutors wanted access to the data inside it.

It marked a rare time that prosecutors have demanded a person provide a fingerprint to open a computer, but experts expect such cases to become more common as cracking digital security becomes a larger part of law enforcement work. The Glendale case and others like it are forcing courts to address a basic question: How far can the government go to obtain biometric markers such as fingerprints and hair?"

Comments

Duress print

[Anonymous Coward]

New option: set a finger to use which will cause the device to wipe. (I can think of an appropriate digit to use).

Re:Public Service Announcement

[dgatwood]

The government can just wait for your prints to regrow (while you are held in custody)

That approach won't work. The device won't take fingerprints after 48 hours. In fact, if the person simply refuses to submit to use of their fingers to unlock the device, they might get held in contempt, but after 48 hours, they can submit to the use of their fingers, and they're no longer in contempt, but it won't be of any value to the government.