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If you do this on purpose after asked to unlock your phone you will probably be charged with destruction of evidence or something like that. However, while a c
by gst 11y ago
If you do this on purpose after asked to unlock your phone you will probably be charged with destruction of evidence or something like that.
However, while a court is (afaik) able to ask you to put your finger on the fingerprint reader, you do not need to tell them which of the fingers the correct one is. So instead of purposely using a wrong finger, I'd ask the court to explicitly tell me which of my fingers I should use to unlock the phone.
- savoytruffle 11y agoIt would be a very long and involved case, anyway.
- azernik 11y agoI think the court would similarly consider that obstruction and contempt. If they tell you to unlock your phone and you try to play some "first you have to guess which finger's the right one!" game, the judge will slap you with either contempt of court or refusal to comply with a subpoena.
- gst 11y agoIANAL, but I don't think there's much of a difference between asking someone to reveal the correct password and asking someone to reveal the correct finger. In both cases you would be asked to incriminate yourself. If it would be lawful for a court to ask you to "unlock the phone with the correct finger" then they might as well also ask you to "unlock this harddisk with the correct keyboard keys pushed in the correct order (as a password)".
- rhizome 11y agoI don't think there's much of a difference between asking someone to reveal the correct password and asking someone to reveal the correct finger. There's a huge difference. Authorities can force you to give up your fingerprint, but not your password[1]. 1. http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/telecommunications/court-rules-police-may-compel-suspects-to-unlock-fingerprint-protected-smartphones http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/telecommunications/court-...
- schrodinger 11y agoIt's the "which finger" that becomes similar to a password, not the fingerprint (ianal)
- rhizome 11y agoAll the court cares about is for the person to supply the one that unlocks the phone, they're not going to play guessing games.
- schrodinger 11y agoCourts care about precise distinctions of law (that's their purpose!). Seems clear that fingerprints aren't protected, basically the same thing as your face in terms of privacy given a good enough camera. But they would effectively be asking you the question "which finger did you use to lock this phone" to which you may plead the 5th.
- rhizome 11y agoIt'll be contempt and possibly more if you don't unlock the device with your fingerprint. It's not hard, the "precise distinction of law," is "unlock this with your finger, whichever one does it." I don't know what complicated back and forth you're imagining, but it's never occurred in any case that I've heard of. they would effectively be asking you the question "which finger did you use to lock this phone" to which you may plead the 5th. We already covered this in the link above: the 5th Amendment covers passcodes, not fingerprints.
- Someone 11y agoBut, as Schrodinger says, this is not about your fingerprint; it is about a bit of information you have that the government does not have: which of your finger(s) this device knows about. "A bit of information you have that the government does not have" is a password.
- giancarlostoro 11y agoYou better hope they don't say the one that you designated to unlock your phone?
- Zigurd 11y agoUse your middle finger to actually unlock and use your index finger to fail. Unless the phone retains the biometric data after erasing itself, it's deniable.
- bdamm 11y agoThis might work in the short term, but if enough folks actually did it, there would soon be a law that you may only use your thumb to unlock your phone.
- travmatt 11y agoWhy not just turn the phone off instead.