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Cops can force suspect to unlock phone with thumbprint, US court rules
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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Privacy
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Makes perfect sense to me (not a lawyer, not a US person)... what doesn't make sense is how many people still think biometric is high security (maybe because of how cool they make it look in the movies?)
Yeah, it’s like if you kept a bunch of illegal things in a safe the authorities have the authority to force you to unlock the safe.
Authorities with a warrant can drill into a safe to get to its contents. That’s legally distinct from forcing someone to unlock the safe by entering the combination. It takes some mental effort to enter a combination, so it counts as “testimony”, and in the USA people can’t be forced to testify against themselves.
The parallel in US law is that people can be forced to unlock a phone using biometrics, but they can’t be forced to unlock a phone by entering a passcode. The absurd part here is that the actions have the same effect, but one of them can be compelled and the other cannot.
It’ll be interesting to see if it applies to facial recognition. In iOS, at least, you need to look at the phone to unlock it. That’s an intentional action. If you look to the side or close your eyes, it won’t work.
So if you’re conscious, you can’t easily be forced to unlock the phone with your face and eyes if you’re able to resist. But if you’re unconscious, then maybe they could use your face (assuming your eyes aren’t rolled back into your head because the cops gave you brain damage.)
But you can be easily tricked. Even easier than with the fingerprint.
"Hey, can you look at those pictures?", shows some printed out pictures with the phone hiding behind and then quickly just dropping the pictures.
Could even poke a camera-sized hole in the picture. And disguise it by putting that hole over something similarly-coloured.
But anyway, but of it is really that you can be held in contempt for refusing to unlock with biometrics, if they've got an appropriate warrant.
Probably a "have a look at this" and the 2 seconds before you realize that you are currently unlocking your phone, would be enough.
They can also compel you to provide a key to the safe, should one exist.
The issue constantly is something you have vs something you know. They also can compel you to provide a document or item from within the safe, if they know that the item exists.