That Fingerprint Sensor on Your Phone Is Not as Safe as You Think

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Currently theoretical at this point, but we all know the exponential increase in technology won't take long to make it no longer theoretical.

New findings published Monday by researchers at New York University and Michigan State University suggest that smartphones can easily be fooled by fake fingerprints digitally composed of many common features found in human prints. In computer simulations, the researchers from the universities were able to develop a set of artificial “MasterPrints” that could match real prints similar to those used by phones as much as 65 percent of the time.

The researchers did not test their approach with real phones, and other security experts said the match rate would be significantly lower in real-life conditions. Still, the findings raise troubling questions about the effectiveness of fingerprint security on smartphones.

- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/...ecurity-smartphones-apple-google-samsung.html

Of course then there's the issue that you can be forced to unlock a device with a fingerprint but you can't be forced to reveal a passphrase.