

IPhone with fingerprint reader is police wet dream - plg

Fingerprint reader with a user&#x27;s fingerprint data stored in Apple&#x27;s cloud? Sounds like a police dept&#x27;s wet dream.
======
mstolpm
I don't think so. But it might be a great feature for enterprise BYOD/CYOD
initiatives - having a two factor authorization integrated into the phone
(fingerprint + application pwd) could give Apple a significant advantage here.

But what do you think will happen regarding police? If they can access your
phone, they'll be able to take your fingerprints anyway. If they get access to
the cloud data, there a more interesting parts in the data than the finger
print hashes: Getting a few biometric data points from the cloud can be
considered the same as a hash - its not the complete fingerprint that would be
stored inside the cloud (and storage in the cloud would likely be optional).
Some 3rd party can't even match the hashes to a real person - could be your
child, significant other, ... using the phone registered to your name. Law
enforcement, government, ... on the other hand have already access to finger
prints (complete prints/sets) for a lot a travelers, citizens and of cause
criminals.

------
gabriel34
Motorola implemented fingerprint reader on Atrix, but it is strictly local
authentication. I don't think fingerprint data on cloud causes a significant
raise in exposure of your data because your phone number is already tied to
you. On the other hand, a unified fingerprint database could pose serious risk
to privacy if made queryable. I would only trust such system if I could encode
my fingerprint's hash with another mean of authentication such as a password
so that only with the password could my fingerprint be verified. That would,
of course, lessen the appeal of the fingerprint scanner by making it harder to
use than a simple password, but would make for a nice two-factor
authentication.

