Because other surfaces are not a purpose built sensor designed to detect the features of a finger then repeatedly trained with a specific set of finger scans?
Like are you joking?
Saying TouchID validates fingerprinting is like saying MRI machines validate psychics.
It seems you two have a different idea of what is being discussed. The underlying fundamentals of finger prints are solid. The part that can make them ineffective is when they are using insufficiently tested tools or matching on too few points. And of course misrepresentating what a match actually means and how it pertains to the case.
> The underlying fundamentals of finger prints are solid.
What exactly are these underlying 'fundamentals'? Nobody even knows if everybody has unique fingerprints, it's just an assumption.
Beyond that, it's not all that relevant since as you mentioned how the matching is done is largely subjective, and it depends a lot on the number of "points" used and who does the matching, and that should really bring the accuracy even more into question. What exactly is the statistical probability of an incorrect match based on the number of points used? Good luck answering that question.
IMO the situation is made a lot worse by the fact that the public generally assumes fingerprinting to be extremely accurate (or 100% accurate).
Like are you joking?
Saying TouchID validates fingerprinting is like saying MRI machines validate psychics.