According to The Virginian-Pilot, Judge Steven Frucci ruled that making suspects provide their passwords so police can snoop through their phones is a violation of the Fifth Amendment because it would force suspects to incriminate themselves. But in the same ruling, the presiding judge decided that demanding suspects to provide their fingerprints to unlock a TouchID phone is constitutional because it’s similar to compelling DNA, handwriting or an actual key—all of which the law allows.
Note that this ruling only applies in one Circuit in Virginia, but the logic would seem to apply. So, use passwords/passcodes on your iDevices!
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Police can Compel Fingerprint Unlocking of Phones - in Virginia
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Fnord666 on Tuesday November 04 2014, @03:24PM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RobotMonster on Tuesday November 04 2014, @03:58PM
Or use the wrong fingers - after a few fails it requires your passcode.
Knowledge of which fingers work is essentially part of your touchID "password".
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Wednesday November 05 2014, @04:15AM
I would think that duress programs could just as easily be installed, so that if you were forced to surrender the phone under duress, logging on with the wrong finger just instructs the phone to wipe itself, resetting itself to original default settings, much like the init switch on some routers.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by monster on Wednesday November 05 2014, @04:37PM
That would probably amount to willful destruction of evidence.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday November 06 2014, @12:47PM
That's actually an interesting question. If you comply with their orders and what they order causes the phone to be wiped, can you really call that *willful* destruction?
Of course, that depends on if they say 'unlock your phone' or 'swipe your finger'; or if you can get the judge to buy a story of 'I was under a lot of stress and accidentally swiped wrong'...
(Score: 1) by monster on Thursday November 06 2014, @03:48PM
IMHO, if they can show that the real intention for the mechanism is indeed to wipe the data, it's still willful destruction, even if the police didn't say the "correct" words. Kind of like putting a shotgun in a mount, tieing a cord to the trigger and to the pommel of your door, then arguing that since it was the person who tried to open it who made the shot, you should be clear of manslaughter charges.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday November 06 2014, @04:30PM
Yeah, that probably is how they'd try to prosecute at least. But there's a couple issues with your analogy. First, any reasonable person looking at the shotgun booby-trap would conclude that the only possible intention was to kill someone. If you set all that up, you wanted *someone* dead. Compare it to a magician -- the guy who helps Houdini put on the handcuffs doesn't get charged with murder if Houdini dies unless they can prove he did something directly malicious. Intent matters. With the phone wiping, there are other immediately obvious reasons you might install that software, and there are other immediately obvious reasons you might swipe the wrong finger. Which, at least theoretically, should mean that they have to prove you did it specifically intending to destroy evidence. And that's damn near impossible to do.
Ultimately, if you're rich and can afford a good lawyer, I think you could escape charges for doing that. If you do it and you've got a public defender, you're going to prison.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Adamsjas on Tuesday November 04 2014, @10:58PM
Stop using biometrics.
These have already proven ineffective to any kid who can read a blog.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/09/defeating-apples-touch-id-its-easier-than-you-may-think/ [arstechnica.com]
(Score: 2) by doublerot13 on Tuesday November 04 2014, @03:38PM
They can force you give up fingerprints, have access to all your email accounts, text messages...pretty much every channel used in two factor auth.
Maybe a really long pass is the only way to go.
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Tuesday November 04 2014, @03:59PM
Why anyone would use a fingerprint lock is beyond me. It's not secure at all.
Saying that, it's much more secure than not setting at form of lock code at all - which I know some people do.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday November 04 2014, @04:11PM
Saying that, it's much more secure than not setting at form of lock code at all - which I know some people do.
How so?
Obviously, its 2014, any .com, .gov, or criminal who gets physical custody of the device owns the device, although the amount of time required varies by device and threat level. Also if .gov and/or .com are serious, they don't need physical custody to gain complete access to all your data.
So a lock code or fingerprint merely stops the non-criminal elements of the general public and family members, or rephrased, people who aren't much of a threat.
The result seems to be nothing at all other than wasted effort on the part of the user while providing a false sense of security.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 04 2014, @05:05PM
> So a lock code or fingerprint merely stops the non-criminal elements of the general public and family members, or rephrased, people who aren't much of a threat.
Think of all the places you (or probably not you since you are an uberman, so a normal person then) leave your phone momentarily unattended. Situations where you would notice it being stolen - and then remotely wipe it, but wouldn't notice if it were gone for just a couple of minutes. That is what fingerprint locking is good for.
Also, the very fact that the police want to force people to do this contradicts your claim that it is easy for them to work around.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 05 2014, @04:40PM
I don't know what kind of places you talk about, what the kind I know fall in two types: The ones you could consider 'friendly' and so low risk and the ones where if you leave your phone unattended you can forget about getting it again.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 04 2014, @04:16PM
I don't see how this can pass the 4th ammendment. The very first thing on the list of things to be secure in is "their persons." If they got a warrant, that would be one thing. Taking a fingerprint or a DNA sample in order to record/search in their own database is a narrowly defined purpose, but forcing someone to apply their fingerprint to use on a non-police computer system is a major expansion. The judge seems to be doing that autistic thing where they ignore the intent of why fingerprints are collected and saying well since you can collect them for one narrow purpose it is OK to use them for any purpose because once you've got them it is a free-for-all.
(Score: 2) by hubie on Tuesday November 04 2014, @04:20PM
Autistic thing???
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 04 2014, @04:31PM
Yes. One of the characteristics of autism is a lack of understanding nuance when dealing with people.
(Score: 3, Informative) by CRCulver on Tuesday November 04 2014, @05:20PM
It has been some months now since a Supreme Court ruling that police need a warrant to search cell phones. Please try to keep up. This particular ruling concerns compelling defendents to provide their fingerprints in order to unlock a phone that police have already decided to search on the basis of a warrant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 04 2014, @07:58PM
Seems ambiguous to me. The police got themselves a warrant to search the phone, they did not get a warrant to force the defendant to unlock it for them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 04 2014, @10:07PM
Please clarify. Does a warrant compel compliance?
If the police have a warrant to search your house are you required to give them the keys? How about to your safe?