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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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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: 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.