Cops can force suspect to unlock phone with thumbprint, US court rules
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."
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I feel like this has always been the case? There's not a lot of precedence to be sure, but people have been operating under that assumption for a long time.
That's why, if you need to keep the cops from looking in your phone, you should use a password. Can't be compelled to give a password.
The classic example is a safe. There's tons of court precedence that you can be compelled to give the cops a physical key to unlock it if there is one, but you can't be compelled to tell them the combo if it's a dial lock.
Fingerprint unlocking is always secondary to there being a pin which is equivalent to a password.
As long as you turn your phone off before approaching/being approached by cops, or before they demand that you unlock it, you'll be fine. You don't even have to take it out of your pocket or look at it to turn it off, just hold the power button for a few seconds.
If you're even more paranoid, enable the setting that requires a PIN code to reactivate the fingerprint unlock after 30 minutes or something.
Or force it to demand the pin after a single failure of the fingerprint unlock and then let your finger kind of slip when they tell you to unlock it.
There are countless ways to mitigate the risks here. You don't have to forgo fingerprint unlock entirely.
I use tasker to automatically lockdown my phone if it experiences too much acceleration. I figure that if I'm being thrown to the ground, I probably want to lockdown my phone. A sharp tap on my pocket works pretty well too.
Or instead of powering off, enable lockdown mode.
Finally someone that commented with a keyword I could search for in my settings (Samsung). Thank you!
Is this some weird free speech thing?
Nah, it's the 5th Amendment. The right against self incrimination. You can't be forced to testify against yourself.
Basically, I can't put you on the stand in the court room and be like, "did you do it?"
You're always aloud to just stay silent and make the prosecution have to prove their case without your help.
But they are allowed to search you physically and take any physical things they want as evidence, be it a ring of keys or your fingerprint.
To add onto that, it doesn't prevent them from breaking into a phone or safe. If they have probable cause or a warrant to search either, they have the legal right to search them. Whether they choose to search them or not given this probable cause depends on the crime being investigated, the difficulty of successfully obtaining the contents, and overall desire to solve the crime/fuck with you. They probably aren't drilling out a huge safe for a jaywalking case. For a murder case, they are probably leaving you with a broken and useless safe and all the contents confiscated.
Note that in many jurisdictions you must invoke your right of silence. Other countries often have similar laws and requirements too.
It's also highly dependent on how incredibly racist the judge and cops are. Warren Demesme had his 5th amendment rights taken away from him because he demanded, quote, "a lawyer, dawg." The Louisiana supreme court, who I'm legally not allowed to voice my opinions on, pretended that this was in some way ambiguous, and so his statements made after this clear demand for a lawyer could still be used against him in court.
I think it’s a fifth amendment thing about not having to incriminate yourself.