Thursday, September 12, 2013

Everyone calm down about the iPhone’s fingerprint scanner



Week #2
Article #1

1.     Category of problem: Technology
2.     Level of problem: National
3.     This article concerns: Fingerprint phone security
4.     Importance/effect on families/individuals: This can affect individuals by violating their privacy and security if Apple decides to turn in information to Federal Agencies. 


My input: Even though Apple claims that the information from fingerprints will stay stored in the phone, this could possibly mean that we are safe with our information only stored in our phones, but it could also mean that if your phone is somehow synced to your computer or "iCloud" it could also share your information with other people, creating a threat to individuals. Also this fingerprint innovation can lead to Apple creating a fingerprint database and Federal Agencies using this information to invade privacy of individuals to help "solve cases" or for any other circumstances that they might think they need this kind of information from individuals. This could also affect individuals, when asked to give up their information because as it is stated in the article " some courts have ruled that forcing a defendant to provide the password for an encrypted hard drive is a violation of the defendant’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. It seems unlikely that the same level of protection would apply to fingerprint scans because the police can obtain them merely through access to a suspect's thumb." (Peterson) Therefore we better think twice before we give up our fingerprints, simply because it’s a cool new feature on a phone.

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