SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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!
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Police can Compel Fingerprint Unlocking of Phones - in Virginia
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 19 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you.
Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure.
(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.