Stop Using Your Face or Thumb to Unlock Your Phone

return2ozma@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 379 points –
Stop Using Your Face or Thumb to Unlock Your Phone
gizmodo.com
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The article pretty plainly says the guy was coerced into entering his password. So the headline feels a bit manipulative.

The headline is click-bait. I honestly don’t know why people still read this crap.

So he was "only" coerced, ie likely verbally abused and lied to (which cops are allowed to do) about the consequences of refusing to unlock, instead of being physically forced. Such freedom.

What’s that got to do with using a thumb to unlock the phone?

“The general consensus has been that there is more Fifth Amendment protection for passwords than there is for biometrics,” Andrew Crocker, the Surveillance Litigation Director at the EFF, told Gizmodo in a phone interview. “The 5th Amendment is centered on whether you have to use the contents of your mind when you’re being asked to do something by the police and turning over your password telling them your password is pretty obviously revealing what’s in your mind.”

Sure, but what does your original comment have to do with the thumbprint?

The cops can coerce or force you to use biometrics to unlock your phone, but they can't coerce you into giving up your passcode without a warrant.

However, the panel said the evidence from his phone was lawfully acquired “because it required no cognitive exertion, placing it in the same category as a blood draw or a fingerprint taken at booking..."

If the precedent is that unlocking the phone is the same category as fingerprint taking, well, what happens if you refuse to be "coerced" into having your prints taken? Even if the legal precedent isn't fully understood, it looks like the reasoning here isn't based on whether there was physical force applied, but whether the search required the contents of the person's mind.

I do t know about fingerprints but I thought a blood draw required cooperation or court order

In many (if not most) US jurisdictions, operating a vehicle under a driver's license specifically implies consent to a blood draw when under suspicion of impaired driving.

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