10mo ago

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

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

Ruling: Thumbprint scan is like a "blood draw or fingerprint taken at booking."

The legal situation is more complex and nuanced than the headline implies, so the article is worth reading. This adds another ruling to the confusing case history regarding forced biometric unlocking.

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Reminder that on an iPhone, if you hold the Volume Up and Power buttons simultaneously for several seconds, the phone will vibrate and will require the PIN or password next time you unlock it, not Face/TouchID. This happens whether the screen is on or off, so you can discretely do it in your pocket.
- Or just use pin all the time, no face or fingerprint.
  
  And then some random dude takes a peek at you entering said password, and steals the phone :/
  
  GrapheneOS has an option to scramble the numbers on the unlock screen. I don't know if that's a base android thing or available on IOS
  
  Correct. Not sure about iOS either, but many custom roms can, e.g. divestos, probably resurrection remix used to have it back when it was a thing (not sure here, but I distinctly remember having this feature somewhere before graphene)
  
  In order to turn off the Find My iPhone functionality, you need the Apple ID password, so this isn’t even a real concern. You can even remotely lock the phone with a new password. Apple has made stealing an iPhone and making it work afterwards very hard.
  
  The idea is usually to access the victim's banking app, or 2fa app, etc, AFAIK.
  
  Both of those require their own password or biometrics, so you couldn’t access those either.
  
  Idk about iOS, but android lets you add a fingerprint using the lock screen password
  
  When changing biometric data on the iPhone, it locks you out of using it in other apps, making you put in your bank/other specific password.
- Basically every Android also has a variation of this
  
  Absent an idiotic carrier/mfg skin that disables the feature, you just long-press power then click "lockdown".
  Or reboot the device. Rebooting the device will also leave it encrypted if your device has encryption (the PIN/password is needed to decrypt, essentially).
  
  So you know what it is? I just tried both volume keys and all I got was TalkBack (Google's screen reader).
  
  it's called lockdown mode. on my phone you press and hold the power button and select the option. you might have to enable this in settings.
  
  Holy connoli, you are right! I just enabled it.
  
  At least on my phone, rebooting also makes it require PIN
  
  Yeah, that's right. Which is fucking annoying, to be honest.
  
  I find it a little useless since you can also shut it down or force restart (continuously hold power button until it restarts)
  
  Nope.
  Samsung A50 doesn't have this option.
  Will keep an eye out for it though.
  
  Depends on the rom. It's in Android since 9. Samsung definitely has it, but you have to enable it
  
  I didn't realize how many people didn't know this so someone should probably post a PSA and quick guide in c/Privacy.
  
  My Samsung A11 (android 12) has a "lockdown" option when you held the power button. It would turn off all biometrics and hide notifications. You may have to dig in the settings to enable it, though
  
  If you don't, just force power restart it. You can search this up online for your model.
  https://www.hardreset.info/devices/samsung/samsung-galaxy-a50/softreset-second-method/
  
  You need to enable it. "show lockdown option"
  
  Without having to look at the device?
  
  Nope :(

121 comments