Cops can force suspect to unlock phone with thumbprint, US court rules

jeffw@lemmy.worldmod to News@lemmy.world – 473 points –
Cops can force suspect to unlock phone with thumbprint, US court rules
arstechnica.com
164

You are viewing a single comment

Turn on pin-secured boot and shut off the phone and a fingerprint should be useless now, right? And don't the cops have a lot people's fingerprints on record? Are we just waiting for a cop with a higher than room temperature IQ to come up with a duplicating method to get in people's phones without warrant or even probable cause?

The initial pin that most folks have to enter is needed to decrypt the partition with user data. This is not 100% foolproof for keeping LEOs out since there are many known, and likely more unknown, ways to brute force these but it is still the best option.