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Whether passwords are considered testimony or not is not quite settled in US and Canada yet. There are instances where the court has determined that the accused
by smnrchrds 5y ago
Whether passwords are considered testimony or not is not quite settled in US and Canada yet. There are instances where the court has determined that the accused can be forced to put their finger on the fingerprint reader of their device, but cannot be forced to give up their password. Although there are cases where the password was forced to be given up as well. Until this is resolved one way or another, passwords remain potentially safer than biometrics.
- Aulig 5y agoIt's similar in Germany. Police may just take your finger and put it on the sensor. But you can't be forced to give out your password.
- fastball 5y agoFaceID might be useful here? Won't work if your eyes are closed.
- Thlom 5y agoI think you can disable that by disabling "require attention". If "require attention" is enabled FaceID won't work unless you are looking at your phone. I believe it is enabled by default. But pro-tip if you are being apprehended by police is to furiously click on the side button as the phone will require pin code after that.
- jcla1 5y ago> But pro-tip if you are being apprehended by police is to furiously click on the side button as the phone will require pin code after that. Apparently that won't work on Android -- though there's a lockdown feature (that will disable biometric-unlock) that you can access after long pressing the power button.
- Aulig 5y agoYea, I wish lockdown was easier to access on Android. An alternative would be holding the power button for long enough to turn the phone off. Not great either though.
- Fnoord 5y agoI don't know about Germany but here in The Netherlands Face ID falls in same ballpark as fingerprint. The police can use reasonable force to have you unlock your device with fingerprint, or with your face.
- Aulig 5y agoI wouldnt rely on that personally - too risky for me to have it sporadically misfunction or the police tricking me somehow.
- vbezhenar 5y agoThere's a difference. Your finger can be used against your will. Your brain can't be scanned for password against your will, you have an ultimate choice to provide password or not.
- pwdisswordfish0 5y agoYour brain can be “brute-forced” and Mossad will do it.
- brippalcharrid 5y agoYour brain has different failure modes to your fingerprints, though, and your brain in itself cannot [yet] be used involuntarily in the way that your finger[-tip] can, and as a result of factors like these it's harder to implement distress protocols in biometric authentication systems.
- bbarnett 5y agoWhat? Throw someone in an MRI or whatever. Continuously scan their brain, while their eyes are taped open, and display a changing character on the screen. Meanwhile, play a sound file with someone saying "password" in the background constantly, so diversionary mental tactics won't work. Soon, the first character of their pass will appear, a part of their brain will respond, and you have the first char. Continue until the entire pass appears, and "despair" alights in their brain. Success! Drink champagne and rejoice.
- mercora 5y agohas this been tried? sounds interesting on its own :)
- faeyanpiraat 5y agoThat is barbaric. Implanting a neuralink should do the job more elegantly.
- HowTheStoryEnds 5y ago
- Veen 5y agoYou can quickly disable biometric access on iPhones while the phone is locked by pressing the wake and a volume button simultaneously or pressing the wake button five times, although the latter triggers a call to emergency services too. Of course, that's only useful if you are in position to do so.
- Fnoord 5y agoEvery police officer should know this, and try to work around it when the situation arises. My fingerprint reader on my smartphone is so fucked up that if I just quickly move my finger on it, I had to many attempts and its disabled. Then it requires whatever you use else (PIN, password, ...)